I.I  RRARY 

University  of  California. 


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NEWTON   BOOTH 

OF    CALIFORNIA 
HIS    SPEECHES    AND    ADDRESSES 


EDITED   WITH   INTRODUCTION  AND   NOTES  BY 


LAUREN    E.  CRANE 


G.  P.   PUTNAM'S    SONS 

NEW   YORK  LONDON 

27   WEST  TWENTY-THIRD   STREET  24   BEDFORD   STREET,   STRAND 

®fie  lutiehtrbocker  |)res.3 
1894 


51/ 2-4 

Copyright,  1894 

BY 

OCTAVINE  C.  BOOTH 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 
By  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


Electrotyped,  Printed  and  Bound  by 

Ube  Iftnfcfeerbocfter  press,  Hew  JSorft 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction vii 

CHAPTER   I. 
Orations  and  Addresses i 

California  in  War-Time — Services — Philosophy  of  Public  Opinion, 
and  Fourth  of  July  Speeches — Boyhood  Surroundings — Individ- 
uality— Eloquence — Patriotism — Orations  and  Addresses. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Political  Life 122 

Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company — His  Early  Friendship  for  it 
— Political  Conflict  Created  by  its  Aggressions — His  Course  as 
Leader  of  the  People  against  them — Features  of  the  Long  and 
Bitter  Struggle — His  Forecast  of  the  Future  Sustained  by  Results 
Twenty-five  Years  Later — Sec.  1,  The  Sacramento  Union — Sec.  2, 
Course  as  Governor  of  California — Sec.  3,  Services  in  the  United 
States  Senate — Retirement  from  Political  Life. 

CHAPTER   III. 

Lectures 337 

Destruction  of  Manuscript — Charles  James  Fox — Morals  and 
Politics. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

Magazines — Journals 443 

Index        .        . 511 


NEWTON  BOOTH 

OF  CALIFORNIA. 


<! 


ITJNIVE 


INTRODUCTION. 
PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  TRAITS. 

Every  man  who  during  his  lifetime  has  been  a  public 
servant  and  educator,  whose  speeches  and  writings  have 
been  of  such  high  character  and  permanent  interest  as  to 
deserve  preservation,  has  written  and  spoken  his  own 
biography. 

The  record  of  the  main  incidents  in  his  career  are,  how- 
ever, an  aid  to  an  understanding  of  character,  while  the 
portrayal  of  characteristics  gives  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
man.  There  have  lived  men  who  commanded  respect  and 
fame  for  intellectual  qualities  only  ;  others  who  were  ad- 
mirable also  for  the  cardinal  virtues ;  and  a  smaller  num- 
ber possessing  high  qualities  both  intellectual  and  moral, 
and  gifted  besides  with  attributes  that  endeared  them 
personally  to  multitudes.  Such  men  are  rare,  and  when 
they  pass  away  many  are  eager  to  learn  all  that  may  be 
told  of  them. 

In  person  Newton  Booth  was  a  singular  blending  of 
grace  and  power.  At  first  glance  he  impressed  one  as  tall, 
slightly  built,  and  almost  fragile  ;  at  second,  he  presented 
an  effect  of  proportion  and  of  action,  with  shoulders  rela- 
tively broad,  chest  deep,  and  a  sinewy  ease  of  movement 
suggesting  muscles  of  flexible  steel.  The  earlier  impres- 
sion was  that  of  a  scholarly  presence  almost  delicate  ;  the 
later,  of  possible  strength  allied  with  tireless  energy. 


yiii  IN  TROD  UCTION. 

He  bore  himself  constantly  with  a  peculiar  air  of  de- 
liberate leisure,  even  when  physical  toil  was  necessarily 
great,  and  mental  work  almost  incessant. 

His  countenance,  never  a  mask — always  the  reflex  of 
his  mood,  was  expressive  and  remarkable.  When  in 
repose,  or  alight  with  merriment,  the  ample  forehead  was 
white,  the  complexion  almost  fair ;  at  periods  of  intense 
thought,  with  features  set  to  immobility,  the  eyes  grew 
darker,  and  the  tints  suggested  the  face  of  a  sun-browned 
traveller. 

Both  his  brown  hair  and  full  beard  of  auburn  were 
slightly  inclined  to  curl.  His  brow  was  the  visible  sign  of 
power,  his  lips  expressive  whether  active  or  silent. 

His  gray  eyes  were  large,  luminous,  and  grave,  and 
lighted  up  lineaments  expressive  both  of  purity  of  thought 
and  of  strength  of  character.  He  impressed  one  as  always 
prepared  to  look  at  both  sides  of  every  question  which 
confronted  him.  His  eyes  were  like  his  mind — steady, 
fearless,  and  persuasive  ;  now  sparkling  with  the  fire  of 
oratory,  again  radiant  with  the  relish  of  humor  or  appre- 
ciation of  literary  excellence,  or  with  flashing  abhorrence 
of  shams  and  corruption,  or  scorn  of  malignant  partisan 
work. 

He  never  faltered  in  his  keen,  deliberate  contemplation 
of  the  future  by  the  light  of  all  past  history,  or  in  his 
faithful  thought  for  the  welfare  of  his  countrymen,  whose 
political  perils  were  his  ceaseless  dread  and  inspiration  to 
action,  and  whose  defence  against  these  perils  the  main- 
spring of  his  work  and  hope. 

So  decided  were  his  convictions,  and  so  incisive  and 
disturbing  his  fearless  declarations  of  them,  that  he  was 
declared  by  his  enemies  to  be  "  an  agitator,  a  demagogue, 
an  alarmist,  a  communist."  His  magnificent  defence 
against  his  detractors  may  be  found  in  one  of  his  speeches.1 

1  Railroad  Problem  in  American  Politics. 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

The  following  extract  from  another  will  illustrate  the 
nature  of  his  communistic  tendencies — it  is  on  a  plane  of 
thought  which  characterizes  all  of  his  utterances : 

"  It  is  strange  that,  in  a  country  where  there  are  hundreds  of  millions  of 
acres  of  unsettled  land  ;  in  an  age  when  mechanical  inventions  have  tenfold 
increased  the  power  of  production,  daily  bread  and  comfortable  homes  should 
not  be  easily  within  the  reach  of  all.  And  if  it  be  true  now,  as  is  evidenced 
by  the  frenzied  protests  of  '  strikes,'  and  the  wailing  cry  of  distress  that  goes 
up  from  cities  over  a  speculative  advance  in  coal,  what  will  be  the  condition 
of  affairs  when  our  vacant  leagues  of  territory  shall  swarm  with  teeming 
population  ?  Would  you  behold  the  saddest  spectacle  of  this  age  ?  See  it 
in  the  strong  man  seeking  in  vain  for  a  place  to  earn  his  daily  bread  by  daily 
toil.  Would  you  discover  the  danger  that  threatens  social  order  ?  Find  it 
in  the  boys  of  our  cities  growing  up  in  voluntary  or  enforced  idleness,  to 
graduate  into  pensioners  or  outlaws.  Whoever  will  look  open-eyed  into  the 
future  will  see  that  the  '  labor  question  '  ;  the  question  of  directing  the  rising 
generation  into  channels  of  useful  employment  ;  the  question  of  the  equita- 
ble distribution  of  the  burdens  and  rewards  of  labor,  so  that  the  drones  shall 
not  live  upon  the  workers,  and  honest  industry  may  be  certain  of  its  reward  ; 
the  question  of  making  labor  in  fact,  what  we  call  it  in  speech,  honorable — 
not  only  honorable,  but  honored,  is  the  social  problem,  far  more  important 
than  political  questions,  to  which  our  age  should  address  itself.  It  must  be 
intelligently  solved,  or  like  the  blind  Samson  it  will  bring  the  temple  down 
upon  our  heads."  ' 

It  is  strange  that  any  one  should  venture  to  call  such 
philosophy  and  warning  "  demagogism." 

In  personal  appearance,  at  least,  and  in  every  attribute, 
he  was  the  reverse  of  the  typical  communist.  He  dressed 
so  faultlessly  that  none  ever  recalled  to  mind  his  costume. 

Genial  always  with  his  friends — careless  as  a  rule  of  his 
foes — such  was  his  innate  and  outward  dignity  that  in  a 
land  where  it  was  customary  to  salute  roughly  and  to  use 
abbreviated  Christian  names,  rarely  did  any  one  venture  to 
place  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder  or  to  greet  him  other  than 
as  "  Mr.  Booth  "  ;  yet  his  natural  dignity  was  tempered  to 
the  social  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  and  he  rarely  gave 
to  ignorance  or  presumption  a  rebuke  graver  than  a  warn- 
ing look. 

1  Address  delivered  in  Sacramento,  May  10,  1871. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

Few  were  ever  so  serene  in  manner  at  all  times — few  so 
modest,  quiet,  void  of  self-assertion.  Yet  he  was  often 
reticent  to  the  verge  of  exasperating  those  who  did  not 
know  him  intimately.  So  natural  were  these  inborn  traits 
that,  with  a  few  exceptions,  the  members  of  the  commu- 
nity in  which  he  lived  scarcely  realized  his  full  worth  and 
essential  greatness  until  he  was  gone ! 

Affable,  courteous,  willing  always  to  accord  to  others 
the  full  measure  of  their  deserts,  he  was  yet  an  ever  ready 
champion  in  the  lists  against  men  and  influences  which  he 
thought  dangerous  to  free  institutions. 

In  repose  he  was  the  embodiment  of  all  that  was  gentle 
without  being  feeble,  gracious  without  being  pliant.  When 
aroused  to  antagonistic  action,  on  the  rostrum  or  in  the 
forum,  conscious  of  integrity  of  purpose  and  of  his  own 
powers  derived  from  study  and  thought,  and  conscious 
also  of  the  high  and  broad  principles  which  actuated  his 
every  pulsation  and  utterance,  he  was 

"  Fierce  as  the  midnight,  moonlit 
Nubian  desert,  with  all  its  Lions  up." 

His  political  friends  learned  to  revere — his  enemies  to 
fear  him. 

Never  a  politician  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word,  he 
could  fairly  be  described  as  a  Statesman.  He  sought  and 
accepted  office  as  the  incident,  not  the  aim  of  his  life- 
work.  The  pleasure  he  may  have  found  in  public  life  was 
that  of  patriotism  more  than  of  gratified  ambition.  The 
emoluments  of  office  were  no  temptation  to  one  whose 
resources  were  ample  ;  the  distractions  of  it  a  burden  to 
him  whose  choicest  pleasure  lay  in  his  library. 

From  boyhood  he  was  a  thinker  as  well  as  a  student, 
ambitious  to  become  an  orator  and  a  leader  of  men,  en- 
amored of  learning,  steadfast  in  literary  culture.  In  mature 
manhood  he  blended  success  in  each  field  of  action  into 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

consistent  effort  against  the  wrong  and  in  defence  of  the 
right,  being  too  thoroughly  patriotic  to  keep  silent  in  the 
presence  of  public  danger. 

In  his  addresses  and  orations  he  began  always  in  a  clear, 
strong  voice,  sustained  to  the  close.  If  the  modulated 
tones  were  studied,  they  were  void  of  affectation.  The 
strains  of  high  eloquence  were  not  artificial  but  natural, 
although  always  artistic.  Describing  Edmund  Burke,  he 
said  : 

"  His  speeches  are  like  lenses  in  receiving  the  scattered  light  of  the  past 
and  concentrating  it  in  a  glowing  focus  upon  the  future ;  like  prisms  in 
giving  to  common  subjects  the  beauties  of  rainbow  tints  ;  like  mirrors,  re- 
flecting the  images  of  all  time  and  all  nature." 

In  the  same  lecture  occurs  the  following : 

"  There  are  accomplished  debaters,  brilliant  speakers,  able  party-leaders 
— but  where  is  the  orator  ? — the  man  whose  very  presence  is  magnetic,  whose 
soul  is  so  refulgent  with  his  theme  that  it  glows  in  his  eyes,  beams  in  his 
face,  transfigures  his  person,  blends  voice,  action,  manner,  language,  thought 
into  a  supreme  harmony,  fuses  reason,  passion,  imagination  into  one  power 
— that  ethereal  fire  which  makes  speech  electric  ?  "  x 

Such  was  his  ideal  of  oratory.  Many  times  he  nearly  at- 
tained to  it — at  times  he  did  so  quite.  Strong  personal 
magnetism  was  enhanced  by  evident  earnestness  of  pur- 
pose. It  was  not  in  his  nature,  and  was  beyond  his  power 
to  simulate,  his  individuality  being  too  fixed.  In  Sacra- 
mento once,  to  aid  a  great  charity  he  consented  to  play 
in  amateur  theatricals  a  leading  part  in  a  noted  drama. 
Easy  enough  it  was  to  commit  the  text,  to  understand  the 
character,  to  master  the  "  stage  business  "  ;  but — one 
rehearsal  was  enough — he  abandoned  the  effort  in  laughing 
despair ! 

1  Lecture  on  Fox. 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

A  successful  merchant,  an  orator  by  reason  of  natural 
eloquence  well  cultivated,  a  lawyer  from  early  choice 
whose  legal  mind  would  have  made  him  famous  if  con- 
stant to  his  profession,  a  scholar  of  such  reading  and 
assimilation  that  he  would  have  gained  the  front  rank 
among  literary  contemporaries  if  he  had  devoted  himself 
to  literature  alone, — he  would  have  failed  as  an  actor. 
The  rugged  gold  of  his  nature,  refined  in  the  crucible  of 
thought,  moulded  to  spurn  deceit,  stamped  with  charac- 
ters of  truth,  made  him  incapable  of  any  phase  of  counter- 
feiting. 

Although  he  possessed,  and  often  exercised,  the  happy 
faculty  of  making  unpremeditated  short  speeches  that 
were  delightful,  he  did  not  venture,  until  he  was  over 
forty  years  of  age,  to  deliver  a  set  address,  lecture,  ora- 
tion, or  political  speech  without  first  writing  it  out,  then 
memorizing  it,  and  finally  having  the  manuscript  before 
him.  In  later  life  he  had  so  advanced  in  oratorical  growth 
that  he  could  lay  aside  his  prepared  manuscript  and  de- 
pend upon  a  few  leading  words  written  upon  a  card  held 
concealed  in  his  hand.  Later  still,  after  one  winter  at 
Washington,  he  relied  entirely  upon  the  inspiration  of  the 
moment,  even  when  making  sustained  speeches. 

His  first  appearance  as  a  lecturer  he  signalized  by  faint- 
ing before  the  close,  from  nervous  excitement ;  his  last  by 
displaying  the  powers  of  a  confident  veteran. 

A  lecturer  in  several  churches,  he  was  never  a  commu- 
nicant with  any,  but  he  accepted  and  practically  followed 
the  teachings  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  To  give  more 
than  scant  illustration  here  of  his  faith  would  be  to  quote 
unnecessarily  ;  his  writings  abound  with  it. 

"  Before  the  nations  of  Europe  and  America,  not  now  as  a  cloud  by  day, 
but  a  fiery  pillar  brighter  than  the  brightest  noon,  moves  through  the  heavens 
the  Holy  Bible  !  " 

"Nations  have  risen  and  fallen,  races  have  perished,  a  new  world  has 
been  discovered,  a  new  and  divine  religion  revealed." 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlll 

"  The  present  is  musical  with  the  psalms  of  David,  rich  with  the  wisdom 
of  Solomon,  holy  by  the  Saviour's  death  !  " 

"Now,  around  us  moves  the  grand  panorama  of  the  Universe — above  us 
roll  the  ceaseless  ages  of  the  everlasting.  Now  over  all  and  in  all  God  reigns 
and  rules  ! " 

Such  extracts  from  his  lectures  exemplify  his  religious 
faith ! 

Morally  brave,  physically  stoical,  patient  and  cheerful 
in  enduring  intense  suffering  towards  the  close,  uncom- 
plaining in  agony,  inspiring  those  about  him  to  banish 
sorrow  and  to  put  aside  grief,  he  died  as  he  had  lived — 
an  embodiment  of  unconquerable  philosophy ! 

In  this  introduction  follows  the  outline  of  his  biography ; 
the  details  will  be  given  in  the  succeeding  chapters : 

Newton  Booth  was  born  in  Washington  County,  In- 
diana, December  30,  1825.  His  grandfather  was  a  soldier 
of  the  Revolution,  his  father  a  native  of  Connecticut. 
His  mother,  Hannah  Pitts,  was  born  in  North  Carolina, 
her  father  afterwards  becoming  one  of  the  pioneers  of 
Indiana.  His  parents  married  at  Salem,  Indiana.  Both 
were  remarkable  for  high  character  and  wide  influence, 
and  both  were  of  Quaker  descent. 

In  1846  he  was  graduated  from  Asbury  (now  De 
Pauw)  University,  studied  law  at  Terre  Haute,  and  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  in  1849.  At  that  time  the  examina- 
tion of  candidates  was  more  severe  and  searching  in 
Indiana  than  in  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  Although 
he  did  not  practise  his  profession  much,  trying  but  one 
case  in  Indiana  and  only  a  few  in  California,  he  did  not 
altogether  abandon  the  study  of  it ;  and  twenty-seven 
years  after  his  admission,  in  the  United  States  Senate 
sitting  as  a  court  of  impeachment  for  the  trial  of  William 
W.  Belknap,  late  Secretary  of  War,  he  participated  with 
credit  as  a  lawyer  in  the  great  debate  on  the  question  of 
jurisdiction. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

His  legal  training  and  reading  qualified  him  well  for  the 
severe  work  he  did  as  Governor  in  approving  statutes 
aggregating  952  pages,  and  in  writing  a  small  volume  of 
sustained  vetoes. 

Going  to  California  via  the  Nicaraugua  route,  he  arrived 
October  18,  1850.  For  a  time  he  resided  and  engaged  in 
business  in  Amador  County.  In  February,  185 1,  he  lo- 
cated in  Sacramento,  and,  after  a  time,  laid  aside  his  pro- 
fession and  engaged  in  mercantile  business  successfully. 
In  1857,  with  a  modest  competence,  he  returned  to 
Indiana,  intending  to  enter  again  upon  the  practice  of  the 
law.  Such,  however,  were  the  attractions  of  California 
that  he  abandoned  that  purpose,  made  a  tour  of  Europe, 
and  early  in  i860  returned  to  the  State  of  his  adoption, 
his  mind  matured  and  enriched  by  study,  travel,  and 
experience.  Resuming  business  at  Sacramento,  he  became 
the  head  of  the  firm  of  Booth  and  Company.  Conservative 
in  all  things,  he  was  content  with  the  profits  of  a  sound 
business,  and  never  speculated  in  mining  stocks  or  ventured 
into  promising  schemes. 

In  1862  he  was  elected  State  Senator;  he  was  elected 
Governor  of  California  in  1871,  and  in  1873  was  elected 
United  States  Senator  from  California,  for  six  years, 
commencing  March  4,   1875. 

That  was  his  last  public  office.  After  the  term  expired 
he  travelled  abroad  at  various  times,  visiting  Europe, 
Egypt,  and  other  eastern  countries,  and  made  trips  to 
the  Sandwich  Islands,  Alaska,  and  places  of  similar 
interest. 

He  had  married  Mrs.  Octavine  C.  Glover,  widow  of  his 
friend  and  former  business  partner.     He  left  no  children. 

He  died  at  Sacramento,  July  14,  1892,  of  cancer  of  the 
tongue. 


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NEWTON    BOOTH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES. 

California  in  War-Time — Services — Philosophy  of  Public  Opinion,  and 
Fourth  of  July  Speeches — Boyhood  Surroundings — Individuality — 
Eloquence — Patriotism — Orations  and  Addresses. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  California 
was  an  isolated  community,  with  a  great  territorial  area ; 
with  property  assessed  at  $2 1 7,000,000  ;  with  a  population 
of  less  than  400,000,  of  which  only  about  150,000  were 
men  capable  of  bearing  arms — and  the  State  could  not 
arm  more  than  about  5000  of  them. 

News  by  mail  from  the  East  was  eighteen  days  old  at 
the  shortest.  The  Pony  Express,  arriving  at  intervals  of 
eight  days  from  St.  Joseph,  had  brought  the  news  of 
Sumter  on  its  second  arrival,  April  20,  1861  ;  and  the 
first  through  message  by  telegraph  came  in  October,  1861. 
Mexico  was  threatened  with  Maximilian  by  France, 
Spain,  and  Great  Britain,  and  the  news  generally  was 
intensely  agitating. 

Not  one  loyal  man  could  be  spared  from  California. 
The  shipment  of  gold  from  San  Francisco,  between  $4,- 
000,000  and  $5,000,000  monthly,  was  a  feature  as  inter- 
esting as  important.     The  capture  or  command  of  such 


2  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

treasure  meant  more  than  many  battles  in  the  field.  The 
clipper  schooner  J.  W.  Chapman  had  been  secretly  fitted 
for  the  work  at  San  Francisco,  and  was  captured  only  at 
the  moment  of  her  attempted  departure — her  hold  filled 
with  cannon,  arms,  and  ammunition,  and  crowded  with 
armed  and  uniformed  men. 

That  secret  secession  organization  the  "  Knights  of  the 
Golden  Circle "  was  in  constant  and  menacing  session ; 
plots  had  been  formed  to  capture  the  arsenal  at  Benicia, 
seize  Fort  Point  and  Alcatraz,  and  declare  California  out 
of  the  Union ;  and  danger  threatened  from  Oregon,  from 
Nevada,  from  Salt  Lake,  and  from  Arizona.  The  great 
mines  of  Nevada  were  just  discovered,  and  attracted 
there  multitudes  of  adventurous  men,  a  large  proportion 
of  them  Secessionists.  On  June  4,  1861,  the  rebel  flag, 
guarded  by  one  hundred  armed  men  fortified  in  a  stone 
building,  floated  all  day  at  Virginia  City. 

The  gravest  danger,  however,  lay  in  the  possibility  of 
the  disloyal  element  creating  a  public  sentiment  that 
would  sweep  the  Pacific  States  out  of  the  Union.  The 
Democrats  never  had  failed  to  carry  California  politically, 
and  it  was  evident  that  her  loyalty  depended  upon  a  dis- 
ruption of  the  Democratic  party  as  organized — dominated 
as  it  was  by  an  able  minority  of  men  anxious  to  aid  the 
"  Sunny  South  "  to  establish  an  empire  whose  corner-stone 
should  be  treason,  whose  dower  slavery. 

These  Secessionists  were,  in  the  main,  earnest,  educated, 
practical,  sincere,  and  brave  men,  skilled  in  political  work, 
pro-slavery  by  inherited  conviction,  a  disturbing  element 
in  a  'free  State  at  any  time,  a  dangerous  force  in  a  crisis. 
Accustomed  to  rule,  bold  in  utterance,  implacable,  in- 
tolerant, confident,  and  aggressive,  they  added  to  those 
qualities  the  arts  of  conspirators — intellectual,  energetic, 
wary.  Openly  eloquent  for  disunion,  they  were  silently 
active  to  accomplish  it.  Controlling  the  Legislature  in 
1859,  they  passed  a  law  to  divide  the  State,  authorizing 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  3 

the  people  of  the  southern  part  of  California  to  erect 
themselves  into  a  slave-holding  territory.  The  "  Bear 
Flag  "  had  been  again  floated  at  Sonoma,  was  displayed 
also  at  Los  Angeles  and  San  Bernardino  ;  months  before 
the  bombardment  of  Sumter  a  Pacific  Republic  flag  was 
raised  at  Stockton ' ;  the  Palmetto  flag  floated  for  a  time 
in  San  Francisco.2 

The  secret  arrival  of  General  Sumner,  April  25,  1861, 
and  his  instantaneously  superseding  Gen.  A.  S.  Johnston 
in  command  at  Alcatraz3  was  as  timely  as  fortunate. 

The  above  brief  resume1  is  necessary  for  adequate  com- 
prehension of  the  work  done  by  loyal  men  in  California. 
Those  who  know  best,  best  know  that  for  a  time  her  fate 
trembled  in  the  balance  because  public  sentiment  was 
wavering.  If  that  great  journal,  the  Sacramento  Union, 
its  able  contemporaries,  the  Bulletin  and  the  Call  at  San 
Francisco,  the  Enterprise  at  Virginia,  Nevada,  had  vacil- 
lated for  the  moment ;  or  if  men  such  as  E.  D.  Baker, 
Thomas  Starr  King,  F.  P.  Tracy,  Henry  Edgerton,  Ad- 
dison M.  Crane,  Edward  Stanley,  A.  P.  Catlin,  Gen.  James 
Shields,  and  many  others — prompt,  eloquent,  patriotic,  de- 
termined— had  advocated  secession  and  a  Pacific  Republic, 
or  had  maintained  the  silence  of  timidity,  a  terrible 
chapter  would  have  been  added  to  the  history  of  the 
rebellion. 

Among  the  first — and  among  the  latest — to  give  im- 
pulse to  patriotism  by  stirring  eloquence,  fervent  appeal, 
denunciation  of  treason,  logic  applied  to  lessons  drawn 
from  history,  exposure  of  the  hideous  features  of  the 
slave-holders'  conspiracy,  comparison  of  the  present  with 
the  past,  and  analysis  of  the  future  by  the  light  of  both, 
was  Newton  Booth. 

He  had  declared  what  public  opinion  was  in  essence, 
and  he  knew  how  to  create  it ! 

1  January,  1861.  2  February,  1861. 

3  The  only  actual  fort  in  California,  then. 


4  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"Public  opinion — what  is  that  but  the  bold  utterance  of  the  few  who 
think  what  they  say,  dare  to  say  what  they  think,  and  seek  what  they  want, 
and  the  silent  acquiescence  of  the  many  who  are  too  indolent  for  thought  or 
too  timid  for  action."  x 

It  was  impossible  for  him  now  to  falter  or  to  doubt. 
Influences  surrounding  him  always  were  such  as  never  in- 
culcate treason  or  cripple  courage.  Those  circumstances 
in  life  which  tended  to  form  his  character,  develop  and 
fix  the  attributes  of  his  manhood,  may  be  partly  portrayed 
in  his  own  language : 

"  If  any  of  you  grew  up,  as  I  did,  near  the  frontier,  you  will  have  ob- 
served the  operation  of  social  forces  in  your  own  experience.  Thirty-five 
years  ago,  in  what  was  then  the  '  Far  West,'  almost  everything  consumed 
on  a  farm  was  raised  on  it.  There  was  some  barter.  Butter  and  eggs  were 
exchanged  for  sugar  and  coffee.  Tea  was  a  luxury,  kept  for  cases  of  sick- 
ness. Wool  came  from  the  sheep's  back  into  the  house,  and  never  left  it 
until  it  went  out  on  the  backs  of  the  boys  and  girls.  It  was  carded,  spun, 
and  woven  by  hand.  The  flax  went  from  the  field  to  the  breaker,  from  the 
breaker  to  hackle  and  loom.  At  the  farm  I  best  remember  the  trough  was 
still  in  the  farmyard,  and  the  remains  of  the  vat  were  to  be  seen,  where  not 
many  years  before  deer-skins  and  cow-hides  had  been  tanned,  and  the  lap- 
stone  was  still  kept  which  had  been  in  family  use  for  making  shoes  from 
home-tanned  leather.  I  remember  the  first  threshing-machine — a  horse- 
power— brought  into  our  neighborhood.  It  made  its  appearance  about  the 
same  time  the  first  piano  came  into  the  village.  Both  were  generally  re- 
garded as  evidences  of  extravagant  innovation,  likely  to  break  their  owners. 
All  this  has  been  changed."8 

Again  : 

"  The  ambition,  the  dream,  the  aspiration  of  boyhood, — all  live  in  the  fires 
of  manhood  !  .  .  .  A  love  of  freedom,  of  personal  independence,  was 
a  part  of  the  heritage  of  the  American  people.  That  love  was  expanded  by 
the  grandeur  of  the  scenery  amid  which  they  dwelt  !  "  3 

Such  being  his  expressed  thought,  it  is  clear  that  he 
was  conscious  always  of  natural  impulse  to  strength  in 
simplicity,  truth  in  political  strife,  death  in  defence  of 
liberty. 

1  Lecture  on  "  Morals  and  Politics." 

2  Address  before  California  State  Grange,  Oct.  17,  1873. 

3  Lecture,  "  The  Present  Hour." 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  5 

His  idea  of  the  value  of  our  national  holiday  was  that 
it  offered  better  opportunity  to  teach  abstract  and 
precious  political  truth  and  principles  than  the  stump  or 
the  lecture  platform.     Speaking  of  it  he  said  : 

"  The  theme  would  have  long  since  grown  old,  if  a  great  theme  could 
grow  old.  It  is  fadeless  as  the  stars ;  fresh  as  the  flowers.  Like  the  morn- 
ing star  it  is  ever  robed  in  beauty  ;  like  the  night  always  crowned  with  glory. 
Truth  is  not  a  century  plant  blooming  but  once  in  a  hundred  years."  ' 

In  this  volume  only  two  of  his  Fourth-of-July  orations 
are  given  entire — the  one  immediately  preceding  threat- 
ened rebellion,  the  other  next  following  its  opening  guns. 
All  the  others  might  well  be  published — none  are  repeti- 
tions. 

In  i860  he  procured  an  invitation  to  deliver  an  oration 
at  Stockton.  The  war-cloud  in  the  East  had  made  him 
alert  and  anxious.  He  wanted  to  reach  as  large  a  public 
as  possible  of  thinking  farmers  and  miners,  at  a  city  bor- 
dering upon  the  industries  of  both  ;  and  a  great  assem- 
blage gathered  to  hear  him. 

His  eloquent  opening — in  itself  a  whole  oration — and 
the  closing  sentence  of  that  opening,  "  May  he  bear  aloft 
the  tidings  that  our  country  is  still  by  dishonor  untouched, 
from  treason  free,"  were  but  deliberate  prelude  to  the 
real  aim  of  the  orator,  which  was  to  incite  loyal  feeling  of 
permanent  character  by  discussing  "  the  leading  features  of 
Americari  polity"  \  and  the  meaning  of  the  effort  was 
embodied  in  his  declaration  : 

"  It  is  a  narrow  view  of  history  to  suppose  that  the  American  Revolution 
began  at  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  was  finished  at  the  close  of 
that  war.  It  was,  it  is,  the  struggling  for  fuller  utterance  of  ideas  that  are 
as  old  as  the  first  battle-fields  of  freedom  ;  and  it  will  not  be  complete 
while  there  is  one  battle  for  freedom  to  be  fought  on  tented  field  or  in 
resounding  Senate  !  " 

Referring  to  threats  of  disunion  : 

Oration,  Sacramento,  1877. 


6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  The  people  everywhere  are  true.  All  over  the  land  millions  of  patriotic 
pulses  keep  time  with  the  great  national  heart  that  is  throbbing  beneath  the 
framework  of  the  government." 

Such  inspiring,  cheering  words  were  needed  greatly 
then  in  all  the  Union, — nowhere  more  than  in  California. 

Throughout  the  war  he  spoke  often,  clearly,  forcibly. 
At  Michigan  Bluff,  in  1861,  his  address  was  so  symmetrical 
and  splendid,  so  inspiring  to  the  mountaineers  to  whom 
he  spoke,  and  throughout  the  State,  that  it  requires  pe- 
rusal as  a  whole — quotation  will  not  serve. 

The  following  year,  1862,  just  when  the  cry  was  ring- 
ing, 

"  We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  more  !  " 

he  delivered  an  address  on  "The  Debit  and  Credit  of 
the  War,"  which  received  deserved  appreciation  and  heart- 
felt thanks  from  Union  men ;  for  rebels  were  then,  and 
continued  to  be  until  the  surrender  of  Lee,  rife  with  in- 
tent, and  at  times  almost  ripe  for  action  on  the  Pacific 
Coast. 

In  that  address  he  predicted  the  destruction  of  slavery 
as  the  result  of  slave-holders'  treason ;  six  months  after- 
ward the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  issued.  In  the 
same  address  he  also  said  : 

"  How  imperishable  is  the  idea  of  country  !  .  .  .  What  is  our  coun- 
try ?  Not  alone  the  land  and  the  sea,  the  lakes  and  rivers,  and  valleys  and 
mountains — not  alone  the  people,  their  customs  and  laws — not  alone  the 
memories  of  the  past,  the  hopes  of  the  future  ;  it  is  something  more  than  all 
these  combined.  It  is  a  divine  abstraction.  You  cannot  tell  what  it  is,  but 
let  its  flag  rustle  above  your  head — you  feel  its  living  presence  in  your 
hearts  ! " 

He  also  said  then  : 

"  Not  now,  but  future  generations  will  rise  up  and  call  this  one  blessed, 
because  it  gave  its  most  precious  blood  to  preserve  a  Union  that  shall  lead 
the  vanguard  of  the  nations,  and  whose  hands  will  scatter  blessings  in  the 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  J 

pathway  of  humanity  forever  and  forevermore  !  The  War  of  the  Revolution 
was  fought  for  Independence — Union  was  its  incident.  This  is  fought  for 
Union,  and  must  cement  it  forever !  It  is  a  war  for  the  Union,  and  shall 
baptize  it  with  a  like  eternity  !  " 

Such  utterance  would  have  been  an  easy  after-thought. 
It  was  given  when  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet  and  his  Gen- 
erals were  gravely  doubtful — given  nearly  three  years 
before  Grant  received  Lee's  sword  at  Appomattox. 

Twenty-nine  years  after,  yielding  to  solicitation  after 
retirement  from  public  life,  he  addressed  the  National 
Encampment  of  the  Soldiers  of  the  Grand  Army,  at 
Sacramento.     In  closing,  he  said : 

"  America  has  given  to  the  world  two  men  matchless  in  purity  of  character 
and  loftiness  of  purpose.  Two  stars  have  appeared  in  the  highest  heaven  in 
the  constellation  of  great  men,  whose  light,  with  ever  increasing  refulgence, 
will  stream  to  the  remotest  age — Washington  and  Lincoln  !  " 

Such  was  the  patriotism  of  Newton  Booth  ! 

Of  his  orations  and  addresses,  given  upon  invitation, 
particular  mention  would  be  superfluous.  They  will  be 
appreciated  when  read.  They  embody  a  liberal  addition 
to  higher  education  to  one  who  studies  them. 


ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  RED  BLUFF  LODGE,  NO.   76,  I.  O.  O.  F.,  OF  CALIFORNIA, 
APRIL  26,  i860. 

Now,  while  the  shadows  of  death  lie  darkly  around  our 
pathway  ;  when  the  households  of  our  friends  and  brothers 
are  clad  in  mourning,  and  our  own  hearts  are  touched 
with  grief,  ours  is  not  a  festival  of  joy,  but  rather  of  love.1 

1  Two  active  members  of  the  Lodge  had  recently  suffered  a  severe  bereave- 
ment :  Mr.  Goodrich,  in  the  loss  of  one  of  his  children  ;  and  Captain  Johnston 
in  the  loss  of  two,  burying  the  last  the  morning  of  the  celebration. 


8  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

From  the  graves  of  the  loved  ones  flowers  will  spring  up, 
as  memorials  of  affection  and  emblems  of  hope.  Year  by 
year,  day  by  day,  hour  by  hour,  we  too  are  drawing  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  gates  of  darkness  that  open  upon  the 
solemn  mysteries  of  the  invisible  world. 

"And  our  hearts,  though  stout  and  brave, 
Still,  like  muffled  drums,  are  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  the  grave." 

In  one  of  those  strangely  beautiful  dreams,  of  high- 
wrought,  poetic  fancy,  such  as  he  alone  could  describe, 
De  Quincey  imagines  himself  transported  to  the  silent 
streets  of  a  great  city  of  the  dead,  that  floats  above  the 
coral  floors  of  the  ocean,  beneath  the  calm,  glassy  waters 
of  a  tropical  sea. 

' '  Away  in  cerulean  depths,  the  translucid  atmosphere  of  water  stretched 
like  an  air-woven  awning  above  dome  and  tower  and  minaret — above  peace- 
ful human  dwellings,  privileged  from  molestation  forever — the  gleam  of 
marble  altars  sleeping  in  everlasting  sanctity — belfries  where  pendulous  bells 
are  swinging,  waiting  in  vain  for  the  summons  which  shall  awaken  their 
marriage  peals — and  above  silent  nurseries  where  the  children  are  all  asleep, 
and  have  been  asleep  for  five  generations  !  " 

Does  not  this  picture  beautifully  symbolize  and  aptly 
represent  the  distant  past,  when  viewed  disconnected  and 
apart  from  our  own  lives  ?  There  it  lies  behind  us,  in  the 
dim,  shadowy  land,  the  great  encampment,  the  silent  city 
of  the  dead.  Its  high  works  of  art — its  splendid  temples 
and  palaces  and  monuments — its  peaceful  homes  and 
gleaming  altars  and  far-reaching  streets — all  are  there ; 
but  over  all,  the  unbroken  stillness  of  death.  The  sound 
of  the  hammer  is  hushed  ;  the  noise  of  activity  and  life  is 
gone.  No  more  the  din  of  preparation,  the  bustle  of 
labor,  the  shoutings  of  the  captains,  the  marshalling  of 
hosts,  the  war  of  change,  the  outburst  of  revolution,  the 
conflict  of  improvement  and  decay.     The  work  is  com- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  g 

plete.  The  workmen  have  gone  to  their  rests,  and  the 
children  are  all  asleep  ! 

To  that  land  of  dim  enchantment,  how  prone  are  we  all 
to  look  back.  If,  in  our  mysterious  progress  through  life, 
our  eyes  are  necessarily  fixed  with  curiosity  and  awe  upon 
the  curtained,  cloudy  future,  into  whose  depths  our  paths 
are  leading  we  know  not  whither,  still  and  ever  do  we 
turn,  with  reverence  and  with  love,  to  the  great  past  that 
lies  behind  our  lives,  over  which  our  race  has  marched, 
from  the  beginning  of  time — marked  with  the  footprints 
of  all  humanity — grand  in  its  achievements,  splendid  in 
its  attainments,  holy  in  its  memories !  There  the  patri- 
archs lived,  there  the  martyrs  died  ;  there  the  heroes 
fought  and  poets  sang ;  oh  !  what  shall  the  future  give  us 
to  atone  for  the  glories  that  have  passed  away  ?  Will 
there  be  another  age  of  chivalry  and  high  romance — 
another  line  like  the  prophets — another  race  like  the 
Titans,  who  built  the  pyramids  ?  Will  the  days  of  the 
Athenian  schools  ever  return  ?  Will  there  be  another 
Socrates  to  drink  immortality  from  the  hemlock,  and  Plato 
to  wreathe  his  tomb  with  garlands  from  the  skies  ?  Will 
the  earth  listen  to  the  song  of  another  Homer,  or  requiem 
of  another  Mozart  ?  Will  the  ages  to  come  produce  new 
Raphaels  to  draw,  Angelos  to  build,  and  Titians  to  color  ? 
Will  the  continents  tremble  beneath  the  tread  of  another 
Napoleon  ?  Will  humanity  bear  another  Shakespeare,  to 
mirror  the  universe  in  his  single  mind  ;  or  Washington,  to 
illumine  all  the  ages  with  the  sunlike  purity  of  his  soul? 
Or  did  the  world  become  commonplace  when  we  were 
born  ? — must  the  race  hereafter  bring  forth  common  men, 
and  reproduce  prosaic  times? 

History  is  the  expression  of  the  powers  and  capabilities, 
the  wants,  aspirations,  and  necessities  of  humanity.  It  is 
the  unfolding  of  man's  nature — the  mapping  out  of  his 
being  upon  the  canvas  of  time  ;  and  when  history  is  com- 
plete, it  will  present  a  great  picture  of  humanity  fully  dis- 


I o  NE WTON  BOOTH. 

closed.  We  are  passionate,  aggressive,  impatient  of  re- 
straint ;  we  have  that  feeling  of  revenge  which  Lord  Bacon 
calls  a  sense  of  wild  justice  ;  and  the  red  pathway  of  war, 
attesting  the  universality  of  these  feelings,  is  traceable 
through  all  the  past.  We  have  the  divine  instinct  of 
order ;  the  craving  for  society ;  the  yearning  for  fellow- 
ship— anci  states,  governments,  and  laws  embody  and  rep- 
resent this  portion  of  our  nature.  We  are  ideal,  creative  ; 
have  the  sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  desire  for  dominion — 
and  music  and  song,  painting  and  architecture,  the  steam- 
engine,  the  power-loom  and  printing-press  are  the  result. 
We  are  prone  to  evil,  weak  in  the  presence  of  temptation  ; 
and  every  age  brings  forth  a  new  harvest  of  crime,  reveal- 
ing the  dark  background  of  our  nature.  We  are  religious  ; 
have  the  desire  to  worship,  the  mysterious  sense  of  the 
invisible  presence,  the  inward  prompting  to  reverence  ; 
and  mythologies  and  systems,  the  creations  of  Asgard, 
Valhalla  and  Olympus ;  the  adoration  of  idols,  the  sun, 
the  moon,  and  the  Great  Spirit,  flow  out  from  that  feeling 
which  finds  its  highest  exercise  in  the  presence  of  revealed 
truth. 

Whatever  has  been,  shall  be.  In  the  changes  of  circum- 
stance, man  remains  the  same.  Let  us  open  the  Book  of 
Job,  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  and  the  four  thousand 
years  that  separate  us  from  him  vanish  in  an  instant. 
The  suggestions  of  worldly  wisdom  and  cunning  are  as 
shortsighted  as  though  they  were  made  yesterday  at 
Washington,  at  San  Francisco,  or  at  Red  Bluff ;  while  our 
hearts  tremble  at  the  touches  of  his  pathos,  and  our  souls 
are  awed  by  his  visions  of  sublimity,  as  though  his  own 
fingers  swept  the  chords,  and  his  own  hand  drew  the 
curtain. 

Let  us  sit  down  to  talk  with  Plato  ;  how  fresh  and  com- 
panionable he  seems  !  He  is  as  modern  as  we  are — sym- 
pathizes with  all  our  difficulties,  thoughts,  and  questionings 
— is  engaged  in  solving  the  very  problems  that  baffle  us. 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  II 

Dead  for  twenty-five  hundred  years,  he  can  even  instruct 
us  upon  the  subjects  that  humanity  has  been  thinking 
about  ever  since  he  died.  Let  us  go  in  imagination  to  an 
Athenian  theatre,  and  the  audience  are  moved  to  laughter 
and  melted  to  tears  by  the  same  touches  of  humor  and 
pathos  that  move  and  melt  us  now.  Stand  we  in  fancy 
in  the  crowd  before  a  Roman  forum,  and  see  how  the  old 
Roman  hearts  that  have  been  dust  for  two  thousand  years 
thrilled  beneath  the  fiery  sweep  of  an  orator  who  might 
have  stood  a  model  for  a  Chatham  or  a  Clay. 

Thus  beneath  the  change  of  relations,  the  shifting  of 
forms,  the  growths  and  decays  of  society,  the  current  of 
humanity  flows  on  the  same.  We  are  continually  meet- 
ing with  old  ideas  in  new  shapes.  The  German  mystic 
finds  his  philosophy  anticipated  by  the  dreams  of  a  Brah- 
min devotee  of  a  traditional  age.  The  age  of  Chivalry 
has  gone,  but  the  spirit  that  animated  it  remains,  and  the 
same  feeling  that  prompted  the  Knight  to  the  rescue  of 
the  Sepulchre,  sends  Kane  and  his  devoted  followers  upon 
their  mission  of  love  to  the  depths  of  an  eternal  winter. 
The  pyramids  stand  in  the  lone  waste  of  drear  antiquity, 
mournful  monuments  of  a  lost  art  and  perished  strength ; 
but  that  art  and  that  strength  find  new  form  and  embodi- 
ment in  the  Steam  Engine,  moving  the  machinery  of  the 
nations'  commerce  with  its  tireless  arm,  while  the  pulses 
of  the  world's  industry  keep  time  with  the  throbbings  of 
its  iron  heart. 

There  is  an  old  fable,  or  it  may  be  the  tradition  of  a 
grand  truth,  that  Prometheus  stole  the  fires  of  heaven  and 
conferred  the  gift  upon  mortals.  And  to-day  the  fable  is 
realized,  the  truth  reappears.  The  lightning-winged  mes- 
senger of  the  skies  is  the  servant  of  man,  and  soon  the 
great  globe,  with  its  mountains  and  continents  and  oceans, 
will  dissolve  into  nothingness  beneath  the  stroke  of  the 
Electrician's  wand — when  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  and  the 
twin-born  Americas  shall  meet  together  face  to  face,  eye 


12  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

to  eye,  and  talk  to  each  other  in  that  universal  language, 
the  click  of  the  telegraph  ! 

But  in  all  history,  what  principle  is  so  old  and  so  young, 
so  universal  in  its  development,  so  multiform  and  ever- 
present  in  its  action,  as  the  great  truth  of  Human  Broth- 
erhood. It  is  not  a  type  lost  in  one  age  to  reappear  in 
another  ;  it  is  the  great  truth  for  whose  development  and 
perfect  unfolding  all  the  ages  were  made — and  every  page 
in  history  contains  the  record  of  its  struggles  and  its  trials, 
its  triumphs  and  defeats.  Free,  unrestrained,  all  its  forms 
are  beautiful  and  its  influence  beneficent.  Shut  up,  im- 
prisoned, confined,  it  bursts  its  way  in  fiery  earthquake 
terrors,  like  the  French  Revolution.  Its  earliest,  purest, 
and  simplest  form  is  seen  in  the  family  circle,  at  the  fire- 
side of  home ;  its  grandest  manifestation  is  witnessed  in 
the  State, — civil  government,  armed  with  the  awful  pre- 
rogatives of  sovereignty,  and  radiant  with  the  attributes 
of  justice.  It  is  this  principle  of  human  brotherhood  that 
we  as  Odd  Fellows,  feebly  it  may  be,  humbly  we  confess, 
and  imperfectly,  but  still  in  some  degree  and  honestly, — 
it  is  this  principle  we  claim  to  embody  and  represent. 

Institutions,  like  that  at  whose  instance  we  have  to-day 
convened,  are  as  old  as  the  records  of  time.  Differing, 
doubtless,  in  their  internal  organization, — differing  widely 
in  the  great  objects  they  were  designed  to  accomplish, 
there  have  always  been  orders  and  associations,  bound  to- 
gether by  the  mystic  ties  of  a  common  brotherhood,  from 
whose  counsels  and  deliberations,  from  whose  shrines  and 
inner  sanctuaries,  the  great  world  was  shut  out.  \ 

Even  in  sacred  writ  we  read  of  something  analogous  to 
this,  in  the  institution  of  a  particular  order  of  men  to 
whose  care  were  committed  the  rites,  ceremonies  and  mys- 
teries of  religion,  who  had  charge  of  the  sacred  vessels  of 
the  temple,  who  alone  could  lift  the  veil  of  the  sanctuary 
and  stand  in  the  holy  of  holies. 

In  the  early  ages   of  profane  history,  the  learned  men 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  1 3 

of  Greece  were  accustomed  to  travel  into  Egypt  to  be 
initiated  into  the  Egyptian  schools — schools  set  apart 
from  the  world,  cherishing  the  sciences  and  arts,  and  im- 
parting their  teachings  only  through  impressive  ceremonies 
and  under  solemn  vows. 

The  chosen  youth  of  Greece,  as  a  mark  of  particular 
favor,  were  initiated  into  the  Eleusinian  mysteries.  There, 
surrounded  by  awe-inspiring  associations,  they  were  taught 
the  great  truths  of  life — truths  deemed  too  sacred  for  the 
knowledge  of  the  multitude  ;  impressed  with  a  sense  of 
the  duties  they  owed  to  their  country,  their  fellow-men, 
and  themselves,  and  sent  forth,  members  of  a  mysterious 
brotherhood,  to  illustrate  by  their  life  and  conversation 
the  purity  of  the  teachings  they  had  received.  Almost 
three  thousand  years  ago,  Pythagoras  gathered  his  dis- 
ciples together  in  darkness  and  secrecy  ;  curtained  in  mys- 
tery, the  world  shut  out,  he  instructed  them  in  the  use 
and  meaning  of  symbols — taught  them  the  high  truths  of 
mathematics,  the  facts  of  astronomy,  the  unity  of  God, 
the  harmony  of  natural  law  ;  rilled  their  souls  with  the 
love  of  virtue,  and  inspired  them  with  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality. And  have  we  not  to-day,  active  in  our  midst,  in 
the  Masonic  fraternity,  an  institution  claiming  an  exist- 
ence older  than  any  on  the  earth  save  the  Jewish  church  ? 

The  universal  existence  of  this  principle  of  association 
may  at  least  prove  that  it  responds  to  a  legitimate  want 
of  humanity,  and  that  it  will  continue  to  find  an  embodi- 
ment in  some  form  while  human  nature  remains  the  same. 

The  time  has  indeed  gone  by  when  the  Most  High  re- 
veals His  will  to  a  particular  order  of  men.  The  ark  of  the 
covenant  is  no  longer  sealed.  There  is  no  longer  a  neces- 
sity, as  in  the  days  of  the  Egyptian  Magi,  to  set  apart 
schools  distinct  from  the  world  to  cherish  and  cultivate 
the  arts  and  sciences,  lest  their  knowledge  should  perish 
from  the  earth.  Free  inquiry,  a  free  press,  and  free  schools 
have  made  these  as  free,  as  accessible,  and  imperishable  as 


14 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


the  air.  Science,  as  in  the  days  of  Pythagoras,  is  no  longer 
driven  to  the  fastness  of  secret  places  to  inculcate  her  les- 
sons. Her  votaries  are  not  now  proscribed  ;  she  has  come 
out  from  the  cloister,  mingles  in  the  daily  pursuits  of  men, 
and  is  the  handmaid  of  their  labors.  The  unity  of  God, 
the  harmony  of  natural  law,  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
are  no  longer  truths  taught  only  in  symbols,  and  whose 
knowledge  constitutes  the  seal  of  a  favored  brotherhood. 
American  youth  need  no  Eleusinian  rites  to  impress  upon 
them  the  duty  of  patriotism  ;  for  we  have  a  country  to  love, 
whose  institutions  challenge  our  admiration,  and  whose 
honor  it  is  our  highest  privilege  to  cherish  and  protect. 

But  still  the  heart  remains  the  same.  Still  does  it  en- 
shrine lofty  truths  in  beautiful  symbols,  and  recognize  the 
emblem  as  the  shadow  of  the  invisible.  Still  is  it  awed 
into  reverence  and  lifted  into  rapture  by  impressive  forms 
and  ceremonies.  The  principal  of  fraternization  is  strong 
as  ever,\and  the  associations  it  forms  find  new  ties,  new 
objects,  other  purposes,  and  other  duties.  There  are  tears 
to  be  dried,  fountains  of  sorrow  to  be  closed,  and  fountains 
of  love  to  be  opened.  There  is  distress  to  be  relieved, 
sickness  to  be  visited,  the  dead  to  be  buried,  the  orphan  to 
be  educated,  social  virtue  to  be  improved ;  man  is  to  be 
brought  into  a  closer  acquaintance  with  his  fellow-man, 
his  mind  enlightened — in  a  word,  the  true  fraternal  rela- 
tion is  to  be  cultivated  and  perfected. 

Such  is  the  aim  of  Odd  Fellowship.  Based  upon  cer- 
tain truths  that  are  alike  axioms  among  all  nations,  tongues, 
and  kindreds,  it  claims  no  religious  sanction  for  its  teach- 
ings ;  it  aspires  to  no  political  power  ;  it  does  not  trace  its 
history  back  through  volumes  of  legendary  lore,  or  hold 
its  patent  from  the  hands  of  kings.  Its  works  are  the  seal 
of  its  birthright ;  its  mission,  to  do  good  in  the  daily  walks 
of  life.  It  is  essentially  humanitarian.  It  proposes  to  re- 
spond to  the  common  wants  and  common  duties  of  com- 
mon humanity.     It  recognizes  man  as  he  is,   in  himself 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  1 5 

helpless,  liable  to  sickness,  exposed  to  difficulty  and  dan- 
ger— social  intercourse  is  as  necessary  to  his  well-being  as 
the  breath  of  his  nostrils.  It  is  its  purpose  to  adapt  itself 
to  the  age  in  which  it  is  encamped — a  practical,  toiling 
age  ;  to  offer  social  recreation  from  the  monotony  of  daily 
toil,  to  impart  great  truths  under  the  teachings  of  beau- 
tiful symbols,  inculcate  the  lessons  of  virtue  under  impres- 
sive forms  and  ceremonies  5  to  protect  us  in  danger,  assist 
us  in  sickness,  soften,  as  far  as  may  be,  the  trials  and  suf- 
ferings inseparable  from  human  life,  and  when  we  are  gone, 
afford  an  asylum  to  protect  those  whom  we  love  from  the 
peltings  of  the  pitiless  storm. 

Men  of  well-assured  wealth,  men  of  leisure  and  high 
social  position,  who  have  access  to  the  rich  stores  of  liter- 
ature and  exquisite  productions  of  art,  may  never  need  its 
solaces  or  appreciate  its  kindly  aids.  It  is  to  earnest  men 
— men  who  bear  life's  burdens  and  responsibilities,  and 
who  sometimes  grow  tired  of  the  load — to  the  great  body 
of  privates  in  the  army  of  life,  that  it  is  most  commended, 
and  to  these  it  is  a  very  present  counsellor  and  friend. 

There  are  those  whom  too  much  learning  hath  made 
mad.  There  are  those  whose  lofty  Byronic  natures  look 
only  with  scorn  upon  the  affairs  of  every-day  life.  There 
are  those  whose  minds  are  so  elevated  into  the  regions  of 
intellectual  abstraction,  that  they  are  frozen  into  a  cold 
scepticism  and  are  incredulous  of  all  that  is  good  and  gen- 
erous in  human  nature.  There  are  those  who  are  proudly 
self-reliant  in  the  consciousness  of  their  own  strength. 
There  are  those,  all  of  whose  aims  are  bounded  by  the  cir- 
cle of  self.  Odd  Fellowship  is  for  none  such.  It  does  not 
meet  the  wants  of  their  natures.  Its  birth  was  among  the 
poor,  and  we  love  it  the  better  for  its  lowly  origin ;  it  was 
not  more  lowly  than  the  manger  where  the  Child-Saviour 
was  born  !  Its  ministerings  are  among  common  men,  and 
we  love  it  the  better  for  it,  for  our  own  hearts  keep  time 
with  the  stirring  march  of  democracy ! 


1 6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Forty-one  years  ago  to-day,  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of 
April,  1 819,  Thomas  Wildey,  John  Welsh,  John  Duncan, 
John  Cheatam,  and  Richard  Busworth  met  at  the  house  of 
William  Lupton,"  Sign  of  the  Seven  Stars,"  Second  Street, 
in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  to  organize  a  lodge  of  Odd  Fel- 
lows. They  were  humble,  obscure  men  ;  without  the  aids 
of  learning  or  advantages  of  wealth.  They  had  no  am- 
bitious designs — no  aspirations  for  fame,  or  expectation  of 
personal  emolument.  They  were  poor,  and  had  realized 
in  their  own  lives  the  necessity  for  counsel  in  health  and 
consolation  in  sickness.  These  they  could  furnish  to  each 
other.  They  had  few  friends — they  could  draw  the  closer 
to  each  other,  and  their  hearts  beat  the  truer  "  for  a' 
that." 

There  was  the  origin  of  the  institution,  the  anniversary 
of  whose  nativity  we  have  met  to-day  to  celebrate.  For- 
ty-one years  have  gone — a  brief  space  in  history,  but  a 
long  period  in  the  life  of  man.  There  are  those  here  who 
can  remember  so  far  back,  but  the  gray  hairs  have  gath- 
ered where  the  sunny  curls  clustered,  and  eyes  bright  with 
the  dreams  of  boyhood  are  dimmed  with  the  memories  of 
years.  Forty  and  one  years  !  A  full  generation  has  passed 
over  the  globe.  How  the  world  has  changed  !  Then,  what 
a  wilderness  of  solitude  was  this  spot — the  unknown  de- 
pendency of  a  Spanish  throne.  Then  our  whole  country 
was  ringing  with  fierce  declamation  over  the  admission  of 
Missouri — Missouri  herself  the  western  frontier,  the  ultima 
Thule  of  civilization.  Napoleon  was  fretting  out  the  rem- 
nant of  his  days  in  his  ocean  prison,  and  a  poor  collier  of 
Killingworth  was  elaborating  in  his  own  brain  the  thought 
that  was  to  mature  itself  into  the  railway  locomotive,  and 
change  the  destiny  of  the  world  ! 

Time,  that  blights  so  many  hopes  and  brings  so  many 
sorrows,  is  still  unfolding  the  great  plans  of  Providence — 
it  may  be,  realizing  the  one  great  hope  of  our  race. 

Forty-one  years  have  gone  ;  and  to-day  the  successors 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  I J 

of  Thomas  Wildey  and  his  companions  have  met  together 
to  celebrate  the  anniversary  of  their  meeting  on  the 
26th  of  April,  1 8 19.  That  humble  lodge  has  increased  to 
two  thousand  ;  its  five  founders  to  a  quarter  of  a  million 
followers ;  their  first  voluntary  contribution  to  buy  can- 
dles, paper,  and  perhaps  a  pot  of  beer,  has  grown  to  an 
annual  income  of  more  than  a  million  of  dollars  ;  and  to- 
day this  great  army  of  peace,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand strong,  gathers  its  soldiers  together  in  their  various 
encampments,  wherever  the  flag  of  our  country  floats — 
from  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf,  to  this  bright 
land,  where  the  east  fades  into  the  west,  and  the  golden 
clouds  of  the  evening  are  piled  against  the  morning's 
gates ! 

No  dreamers,  laggarts,  or  idlers  are  these  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  ;  but  patient-minded,  earnest-hearted, 
strong-armed  men — men  who  have  grown  strong  from 
labor,  patient  in  trials,  and  earnest  from  continual  wrest- 
ling with  difficulties.  What  are  their  aims,  their  objects, 
their  purposes  now,  that  they  should  be  banded  together 
in  this  phalanx  of  Friendship,  Love,  and  Truth  ?  Forty- 
one  years  ago  our  Association  constituted  a  society  for 
mutual  aid  and  relief ;  but  prosperity  has  brought  new 
duties  and  responsibilities.  In  this  age,  whatever  stands 
still,  recedes ;  whatever  ceases  to  grow,  dies.  Ours  is  no 
age  of  idle  speculation  ;  no  time  for  day-dreams  and  empty 
shows  and  parades. )  All  things  now  are  subjected  to  the 
rigid  tests  of  utility.  It  may  be  that  we  have  become  too 
practical,  too  utilitarian,  too  material,  too  mechanical ;  but 
such  are  the  characteristics  of  the  time  in  which  we  live. 
Time  was,  when  the  poet  went  to  nature  for  inspiration, 
and  saw  only  the  beautiful  in  her  forms.  Now  the  me- 
chanic penetrates  her  arcana,  robs  her  of  her  secrets 
to  press  them  into  the  service  of  the  arts.  Time  was, 
when  the  elements  were  represented  only  in  beautiful 
shapes  of  the  fancy,  in  Fairies  and  Undines,  Fawns  and 


1 8  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Satyrs — creatures  to  amuse  the  hours  of  leisure.  Now 
the  elements  are  the  slaves  of  man's  will — they  toil  in  the 
workshop  and  drudge  on  the  farm,  with  sinews  that  never 
tire,  and  frames  that  never  grow  old.  • 

What  is  the  mission  of  Odd  Fellowship  in  this  toiling, 
practical  age  ?  It  has  outgrown  its  pupilage,  it  has  entered 
its  manhood  ;  what  is  the  work  for  it  to  do  ? 
\  In  the  associations  of  the  olden  time,  wherein  we  see 
the  types  of  our  Order,  the  principle  of  fraternity  which 
animated  them  all  was  yet  modified  and  controlled  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age  in  which  it  was  made  manifest.  They 
were  associations  for  the  favored  few — for  the  elect  of 
wealth,  learning,  philosophy,  and  social  position.  Few 
were  deemed  worthy  of  an  elevation  to  the  truths  they 
taught  and  principles  they  professed.  Their  privileges 
constituted  the  badge  of  a  social  aristocracy.  Broader 
ideas  now  prevail.  Whatever  is  good  enough  for  the  few 
is  not  too  good  for  the  many.  The  tendency  of  our  age 
is  not  to  concentrate,  but  to  diffuse — not  to  garner  up,  but 
to  scatter  broadcast.  And  if  our  Order  would  maintain 
its  position  and  aid  in  the  progressive  development  of  the 
idea  it  represents,  it  must  vindicate  the  doctrine  of  social 
democracy. 

And  what  is  social  democracy  ?  It  is  not  the  barren 
doctrine  that  all  men  are  politically  equal,  and  entitled  to 
civil  liberty  ;  but  that  higher  teaching  that  all  men  are 
brothers,  with  claims  upon  our  sympathy  and  love.  It  is 
no  phrase  set  to  catch  the  ear  of  the  multitude,  nor  the 
watchward  of  a  revolutionary  party,  tired  of  the  restraints 
of  law.  It  is  no  mere  abstraction,  no  bare  negation,  but 
a  living  principle  warm  with  love.  Proscriptive  only  of 
error,  destructive  only  of  wrong,  it  is  conservative  of 
every  right  of  humanity,  and  progressive  in  the  knowl- 
edge and  power  of  the  truth.  Recognizing  all  men  as  the 
offspring  of  the  same  parent,  bound  together  by  the  ties 
of  a  common  nature,  common    sufferings  and   hopes,  a 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  1 9 

common  death  and  immortality,  it  laughs  to  scorn  the 
miserable  distinctions  of  rank  and  fashion,  and  proclaims 
the  broad  doctrine  of  universal  equality — that  the  seal  of 
humanity  set  upon  a  living  being  by  the  hand  of  God,  is 
his  title-deed  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  race. 
High  among  these  is  the  right  to  labor,  the  privilege 
to  enjoy  ! 

I  The  kind  Creator  gives  unto  all  the  sunshine  and  the 
air,  the  beauty  of  the  landscape,  the  freshness  of  the 
morning,  the  splendor  of  the  noon,  the  glory  of  the  sun- 
set, and  mystic  blazonry  of  the  midnight.  For  all,  He 
hangs  His  bow  in  the  clouds,  and  opens  the  volume  of 
His  promise.  But  upon  the  productions  of  man's  labor, 
upon  the  gifts  of  society,  there  rests  a  ban  and  a  curse. 
Of  the  children  of  toil,  how  many  are  there  who  are  free 
from  the  fear  of  want  ?  Of  the  sons  of  labor,  how  many 
can  feel  their  souls  expand  to  their  full  stature  in  the 
blessed  sunlight  of  independence?  In  the  great  army  of 
industry,  how  often  are  the  fallen  crushed,  the  wounded 
left  to  die  ?  While  the  earth  produces  bountifully,  stimu- 
lated to  tenfold  production  by  the  division  of  labor  and 
the  inventions  of  the  arts,  want  remains,  ghastly  as  ever ; 
misery  stretches  her  pale  hands  for  alms,  and  the  cry  of 
distress  is  never  hushed.  Listening  to  the  cry,  wealth  is 
twice  cursed,  cursing  him  who  has,  and  him  who  has  not 
- — the  rich  with  pride,  and  the  poor  with  envy. 

Must  it  ever  continue?  Shall  fortune  always  blindly 
distribute  her  gifts — work  for  the  many,  luxury  for  the 
few  ?  the  sweat  of  toil  for  me,  its  fruits  and  flowers  for 
another  ? — starvation  and  surfeit,  abundance  and  penury, 
side  by  side,  and  we,  the  children  of  the  same  Father,  and 
the  earth  our  common  heritage ! 

'  To  war  against  this  disparity  and  injustice — to  elevate 
the  dignity  of  labor — to  enrich  it  with  the  blessings  it 
creates,  is  the  duty  that  lies  plainly  before  us,  the  object 
lor  which  we  must  never  cease  to  struggle.     If  we  falter 


20  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

through  supineness  or  neglect,  or  fear  of  the  world's  carp- 
ing criticism,  the  sceptre  of  our  power  and  the  crown  of 
our  prosperity  will  depart  from  us  forever. « 

We  shall  not  struggle  without  aid.  Good  men  every- 
where will  aid  us.  The  inventions  in  mechanical  arts, 
more  and  more  requiring  skill  in  their  use  and  uniting  the 
labor  of  brain  and  hand,  will  aid  us.  Labor-saving  ma- 
chinery, year  by  year  bringing  what  was  the  monopoly  of 
the  rich  within  the  reach  of  the  poor,  will  aid  us.  A  cheap 
press,  sending  its  streams  of  literature  by  every  man's 
door,  will  aid  us.  The  growing,  expanding,  resistless  im- 
pulse of  the  popular  heart  is  with  us.  And  God's  immu- 
table laws,  swaying  from  the  heavens  to  the  tides  of 
humanity  on  the  earth,  will  aid  us  in  this  sacred  work. 

We  cannot  all  attain  the  gift  or  the  curse  of  riches — the 
golden  privileges,  or  gilded  chains  of  wealth.  But  in  the 
charmed  circle  where  we  meet,  want  must  never  come,— 
the  fear  of  it  must  be  banished.  There  must  be  diffused 
round  all  the  healthful  atmosphere  of  conscious  indepen- 
dence. Associated  together,  we  can  have  schools,  libraries, 
and  cabinets  of  art.  Meeting  together  frequently,  we 
can  cultivate  the  social  affections  and  amenities  of  life  by 
a  closer  acquaintance  and  companionship  with  each  other. 
Surrounded  by  symbols,  and  listening  to  the  teachings  of 
the  good,  we  can  keep  alive  in  our  hearts  the  sense  of  the 
beautiful  and  reverence  for  the  true.  True  to  ourselves 
and  each  other,  we  can  taste  the  joys  that  wealth  cannot 
give  or  take  away,  which  flow  from  disinterested  friendship. 

Oh  !  in  this  toiling  age — when  Gold  is  king,  when  Com- 
merce makes  the  law — when  Trade  has  everywhere  her 
marts,  and  Mammon  builds  his  temples  to  the  skies, — oh  ! 
build  one  altar  to  Friendship.  Kindle  upon  it  the  sacred 
flame  that  always  grows  brighter  as  the  night  grows 
darker ;  that,  pure  in  the  sunlight  of  prosperity,  in  the 
darkness  of  adversity  is  holy.  May  that  flame  shed  its 
light  around  the  pathway  of  you  all,  and  beam  its  soft 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  21 

effulgence  on  your  pillow,  when  flesh  and  spirit  part,  and 
the  eye  closes  on  earth's  scenes  forever ! 

Shall  the  bright  ideal  of  human  brotherhood,  imper- 
fectly typified  and  faintly  revealed  in  the  associations 
of  the  past  and  the  present,  ever  be  fully  realized  ?  Shall 
the  spirit  of  fraternity,  as  yet  veiled  and  dimly  made 
manifest,  ever  shine  forth  in  the  imperishable  glory  of  its 
nature  ?  All  races  preserve  the  tradition  of  a  golden  age, 
when  there  was  no  law  but  honor,  no  rule  but  love.  Is  it 
a  dream  of  the  past,  or  prophecy  of  the  future  ?  Shall  it 
ever  return,  will  it  ever  be  fulfilled  ? 

I  have  spoken  of  the  State,  of  civil  government,  as  the 
most  august  form  in  which  the  spirit  of  fraternity  has  yet 
revealed  itself.  I  am  aware  there  is  a  pernicious  philoso- 
phy, which  teaches  that  the  natural  condition  of  man  is 
one  of  warfare  against  his  fellow-man.  That  men,  fearing 
each  other,  met  together  and  each  agreed  to  yield  a  por- 
tion of  his  natural  rights,  that  he  might  obtain  protection 
against  the  savage  propensities  of  his  neighbors.  And 
this  is  the  doctrine  of  the  law  writers.  The  theory  is 
absurd,  as  the  assumption  is  false.  In  truth,  man  is 
created  for  society.  It  is  his  normal  condition.  The  in- 
stincts of  his  nature  demand  it,  and  government  is  the 
necessary  result  of  the  structure  of  his  being. 

Nor  is  this  instinct  confined  to  man.  The  birds  of  the  air 
live  in  flocks.  Is  it  not  settled  in  council  when  the  cranes 
and  wild  pigeons  go  south  ?  The  bees  have  their  queen  ; 
and  where  among  men  has  royalty  greater  respect,  or  higher 
prerogative?  The  ants  have  their  colonies,  and  where 
is  the  theory  of  the  division  of  labor  better  illustrated? 
Wild  horses  and  buffaloes  live  in  herds  and  have  their 
leaders,  and  beavers  and  prairie  dogs  have  their  villages. 

But  with  man,  society  is  something  more  than  instinct, 
government  something  higher  than  a  necessity.  In  all 
governments,  however  fallen,  there  is  still  present  the  idea 
of  the  government  of  the  Most  High  ;  and  in  all  law  there 


22  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

is  the  reflection,  dim,  distorted  it  may  be,  still  the  reflec- 
tion of  that  eternal,  harmonious  unchanging  law,  by  which 
He  governs  and  keeps  in  order  the  universe  He  rules. 
Thus  in  early  forms,  governments  always  claim  to  be  es- 
tablished by  divine  will,  and  laws  arrogate  the  sanction  of 
revelation.  And  still,  and  always  there  is  an  invisible, 
indescribable  power  in  the  idea  of  law.  Impalpable  as 
light,  it  is  strong  as  a  barrier  of  steel.  It  does  not  restrain 
so  much  by  the  fear  of  its  penalties  as  by  the  mysterious 
power  with  which  it  is  clothed — clothed  because  it  is  the 
out-giving  of  the  State  and  in  the  State  there  is  something 
divine. 

Oh  !  shall  the  State  ever  truly  reflect  the  image  of  the 
divine  government,  and  justify  the  love  we  all  lavish 
upon  the  country  of  our  birth,  wherever  and  whatever  it 
may  be  ? 

Let  us,  my  brothers,  make  our  Association  a  model 
republic.  No  conflict  of  interest,  no  jarring  of  discord — 
each  member  moving  in  his  appropriate  sphere  to  the 
accomplishment  of  his  appointed  purpose.  Laws  founded 
upon  justice,  administered  in  love.  Harmonious  within, 
active  without,  let  our  existence  become  a  living  reality  in 
the  nineteenth  century. 

In  the  army  of  Thebes  there  was  a  legion  called  The 
Faithful,  all  the  soldiers  of  which  had  sworn  eternal  con- 
stancy to  each  other.  No  man  was  admitted  to  their 
ranks  save  his  life  had  been  pure  and  his  courage  tried. 
Their  charge  had  always  been  the  signal  of  victory,  but  at 
last,  in  a  disastrous  battle,  they  all  fell — each  man  dying 
at  the  post  of  his  duty,  preferring  death  to  defeat ! 

In  the  battle  of  life,  brothers,  be  ye  like  the  Legion  of 
The  Faithful — friends  to  each  other,  true  to  the  cause. 
It  is  right — it  is  honorable — it  is  blessed,  to  strengthen 
the  weak,  to  bind  up  the  wounded,  to  bury  the  dead  ;  but 
it  is  glorious,  unspeakably  glorious,  to  keep  the  flag  flying 
and  to  conquer  in  the  fight ! 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  2$ 

ORATION 

DELIVERED    IN   THE   CITY    OF    STOCKTON,    CAL.,    JULY  4,    i860. 

'  We  have  met  together  in  the  golden  sunlight  of  this 
midsummer  day,  in  this  bright  land  where  the  air  breathes 
softest  and  the  sun  shines  fairest — almost  in  hearing  of 
the  dashing  of  the  Pacific,'  and  in  sight  of  the  white  out- 
line of  the  Sierra  Nevada — we,  children  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Republic,  Americans  by  birth  and  adoption,  Califor- 
nians  from  choice,  and  freemen  by  the  grace  of  the  ever- 
living  God,  to  join  with  each  other  in  the  celebration  of 
our  Nation's  Jubilee  and  one  of  the  World's  Festivals  of 
Freedom. 

Apart  from  the  associations  that  make  this  day  sublime 
in  all  the  annals  of  time,  connecting  it  with  events  more 
important  to  humanity  than  any  that  have  ever  trans- 
pired, except  the  birth,  the  life,  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Him  who  expired  upon  Calvary — apart  from  the 
deathless  declarations,  heroic  achievements,  and  the 
Martyr's  blood,  that  have  separated  this  day  from  all 
others  in  the  calendar,  and  emblazoned  it  in  history — 
apart  from  all  this,  it  is  endeared  to  all  of  our  hearts  and 
memories  by  our  own  personal  recollections  and  ex- 
periences. How  often  in  the  days  that  are  gone,  in  our 
old  homes,  amid  the  scenes  of  our  birth  and  childhood, 
have  we  joined  in  festivities  like  this  with  the  old  friends 
and  neighbors,  now  far  distant  or  long  dead  !  How  brightly 
rose  the  sun  upon  this  day  in  the  season  of  our  boyhood  ! 
How  our  hearts  then  swelled  beneath  the  rustling  flag — 
how  our  spirits  rose  to  ecstasy  at  the  sound  of  the  ringing 
bells  and  roaring  cannon — how  our  pulses  thrilled  under 
the  piercing  fife  and  clamorous  drum,  the  music  that  led 
the  old  Continentals  to  victory  and  to  death  !  With 
what  reverent  eyes  we  gazed  upon  the  little  band  of  gray- 
haired  revolutionary  soldiers  that  led  the  long  procession 
— those  bending  forms,  who  in  the  days  of  stalwart  youth 


24  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

had  taken  sharp  aim  with  Morgan,  had  hid  in  swamp 
and  fought  from  ambush  with  Marion,  had  scaled  the 
desperate  rampart  with  old  Mad  Antony,  had  charged  at 
Princeton,  or  had  suffered  under  the  eye  of  the  Great 
Chief  at  Valley  Forge  ! 

Alas !  where  now  is  the  grand  army  of  American  free- 
dom, the  hosts  that  fought  and  bled  and  suffered  for  the 
privileges  we  enjoy  and  forget  ?  In  all  our  land  to-day, 
of  the  Army  of  the  Revolution  but  a  few  scores  are  left. 
Wonderful  men  !  To  them  it  has  been  given  to  watch  the 
growth  of  an  empire,  to  see  the  star  of  its  destiny  travel 
westward  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific,  its  popula- 
tion increase  from  three  to  thirty  millions,  its  component 
parts  from  thirteen  to  thirty-three  States.  They  have 
seen  three  generations  pass  over  the  globe.  They  were 
contemporaries  with  Mirabeau  and  Danton,  Marat  and 
Robespierre.  They  heard  the  first  news  of  the  young 
French  officer,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  at  Marengo,  and  saw 
that  daring  spirit  climbing  the  heights  of  ambition  and 
grasping  at  the  sceptre  of  universal  empire,  to  die  at  last 
in  his  sea-girt  isle — Prometheus  chained  to  the  rock ! 
And  they  have  seen  his  house  remount  the  throne,  and 
all  Europe  tremble  at  the  very  name  of  that  banished  dust. 
They  have  known  four  monarchs  on  the  British  throne. 
They  have  seen  the  dominion  of  the  western  world  glide 
from  the  nerveless  hands  of  Spain — Poland  blotted  from 
the  map — Russia,  from  the  clouds  of  semi-barbarism, 
looming  up  into  the  grand  proportions  of  the  coming 
power  of  Europe.  They  can  remember  Fulton  and  the 
first  steamboat.  They  were  old  men  when  the  railroad 
was  invented ;  and  in  their  boyhood,  steam  was  first 
known  as  a  practical  mechanical  force.  What  a  great  arc 
of  history  do  their  lives  take  in  !  They  have  celebrated 
the  day  when  the  death  of  Washington  hung  over  the 
nation  like  a  pall — when  their  hearts  were  rejoiced  by 
Perry's  victory,  saddened  by  the  fall  of  Lawrence,  and 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  2$ 

-exultant  in  the  thought  of  Jackson  at  New  Orleans. 
With  us  they  have  turned  over  the  pages  of  history  made 
memorable  by  Palo  Alto,  Monterey,  Buena  Vista,  Cerro 
Gordo,  Cherubusco,  and  Mexico.  They  have  seen  the 
triumviri  grow  up  from  striplings,  to  wrestle  like  giants 
for  the  palm  of  intellect,  making  the  names  of  Calhoun, 
Clay,  and  Webster  classic  throughout  the  world,  then  go 
to  rest  in  the  long  and  dreamless  sleep  that  awaits  us  all. 
They  have  seen  all  this,  event  upon  event,  change  on 
change,  the  experiences  of  a  thousand  years  crowded  into 
history  since  they  were  born,  and  still  they  linger  among 
us  here  and  there — precious  living  mementos  of  the  past. 
Not  much  longer  will  the  earth  hold  them.  The  sands 
of  their  lives  are  wasting  very  fast ;  and  soon,  very  soon, 
the  last  survivor  shall  come  up  on  this  day  to  his  coun- 
try's altar — gone  the  leader's  voice,  the  comrade's  arm, 
the  chieftain's  towering  form  !  Alone  with  another  race 
of  men,  then  shall  his  spirit  mount  on  wings  of  love  to 
join  the  hosts  above !  Oh,  as  he  rises,  may  the  mantle  of 
purity  from  their  generation  fall  upon  ours  !  Oh,  may  he 
bear  aloft  the  tidings  that  our  country  is  still  by  dishonor 
untouched,  from  treason  free ! 

I  desire  to  discuss  briefly  and  succinctly,  if  I  am  able, 
the  leading  features  of  American  polity — the  leading 
features  of  American  polity — American  polity  as  contra- 
distinguished from  European. 

The  subject  is  a  broad  one,  too  broad  and  exhaustless 
for  the  limits  of  a  single  address.  The  subject  is  a  grand 
one,  too  grand  to  demand  the  flowers  of  ornament  and 
finish  of  rhetoric.  Would  that  I  could  present  it  in  its 
simple  grandeur,  its  plain  and  unadorned  magnificence, 
its  sublime  simplicity.  The  subject  is  a  glorious  one — 
full  of  pride  to  the  American,  full  of  interest  to  the 
scholar,  full  of  love  to  the  patriot.  Oh,  may  it  continue 
a  just  source  of  pride,  of  interest,  and  of  love,  till  the  last 
syllable  of  recorded  time  ! 


7 '. 


26  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

It  is  the  theory  of  European  politics  that  all  popular 
rights  are  concessions  from  the  throne.  The  American 
theory  is  that  all  powers  of  the  government  are  conces- 
sions from  the  people.  The  one  deduces  from  above,  the 
other  builds  from  beneath.  The  one  goes  to  Magna 
Charta  and  kingly  promises  for  its  tenure,  the  other  to 
inalienable  birthrights  for  its  foundation.  Each  is  con- 
sistent with  itself.  The  European  system  proposes,  for 
its  great  object,  social  order ;  implicit  obedience  to  author- 
ity, and  religious  respect  for  what  it  terms  vested  rights. 
The  American  holds,  for  its  supreme  good,  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual ;  the  fullest  unfolding  of  his  best 
nature  in  the  exercise  of  his  highest  powers  and  capacities. 
In  Europe  the  government  assumes  to  be  a  higher  power, 
endowed  with  superior  wisdom  to  guide  and  control  the 
masses ;  in  America,  the  masses  give  form  and  character 
to  the  government.  The  European  seeks  the  order  of  the 
people  through  the  power  of  the  nation  ;  the  American 
seeks  national  power  through  the  strength  of  the  people. 
With  the  European,  the  State  is  the  great  object  of  solici- 
tude ;  with  the  American,  the  man. 

Both  of  these  ideas  are  fully  represented  on  the  stage 
of  human  affairs,  and  the  pages  of  future  history  are  to  be 
filled  with  their  conflicts  and  triumphs.  Which  is  the 
true  theory  ?  Which  is  the  most  consistent  with  the 
peace  and  progress  of  humanity  ?  These  are  questions 
to  be  calmly  asked  and  dispassionately  answered.  Let 
us  seek  for  a  solution,  if  possible,  in  past  experience  and 
philosophy. 

Government  is  a  necessity  of  our  nature.  It  is  an  in- 
stinct— the  same  that  causes  birds  to  live  in  flocks,  wild 
animals  in  herds  ;  that  gives  the  bees  their  queens,  and 
the  ants  their  colonies.  In  every  condition  of  society 
men  organize  into  governments  as  inevitably  as  minerals 
tend  to  crystallize,  or  the  pine  assumes  its  shape.  Savage 
tribes,  sailors  shipwrecked  upon  uninhabited  islands,  cara- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  2J 

vans  upon  the  desert,  companies  of  emigrants  crossing  the 
plains,  silver-hunters  in  Washoe,  Mormons  in  Utah, — all 
recognize  some  species  of  authority  and  law.  So  universal 
is  this  prompting  of  our  nature,  so  strong  this  necessity 
of  our  being,  that  if  it  were  possible  to  collect  together 
the  abandoned  and  the  vile,  the  inmates  of  our  jails  and 
penitentiaries,  the  murderers,  felons,  and  outcasts  of  society, 
and  banish  them  all  to  some  inhospitable  and  unvisited 
land,  they  would  erect  among  themselves  some  system  of 
government  and  adopt  some  code  of  law. 

Forms  of  government  are  the  growth  of  time.  Phi- 
losophers, statesmen,  and  theorists  may  speculate,  reason, 
and  dream  ;  but  history  and  experience  only  build  institu- 
tions. Among  savage  tribes,  government  always  assumes 
the  form  of  a  military  chieftaincy.  In  that  rude  state  of 
society,  property  has  little  necessity  for  protection  by 
law — its  forms  are  too  simple.  The  bow  and  arrow,  skins 
of  the  panther  and  bear,  the  store  of  dried  venison  and 
acorns,  the  canoe  and  the  wigwam,  are  not  held  by  titles 
of  parchment,  but  by  possession,  defended  when  neces- 
sary by  force.  There,  too,  individual  wrongs  are  left  to 
the  redress  of  the  wild  justice  of  personal  revenge.  But 
the  necessity  for  thorough  organization  in  the  wars  with 
neighboring  tribes,  requires  a  government  that  gives  bold- 
ness, quickness,  unity,  and  decision  in  action,  and  that 
form  is — a  military  despotism.  There,  also,  the  rites  and 
ceremonies  of  religious  superstition  are  invoked  to  give 
sacredness  to  the  person  of  the  leader  and  sanction  to  his 
will ;  and  the  "  medicine-man,"  the  prophet,  is  associated 
with  him  in  authority,  sometimes  represented  in  his  own 
person,  the  chief  being  priest  as  well  as  king.  As  the 
tribe  increases  in  power,  and  successful  forays  and 
military  incursions  are  made  upon  neighboring  people, 
the  chief  divides  the  conquered  hunting  grounds  among 
his  leading  warriors,  and  these  become  a  kind  of  savage 
aristocracy — a  privileged  rank. 


28  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

In  this  rude  outline  of  savage  government  you  may  see 
distinctly  traced  the  lineaments  of  the  proudest  monarchies 
of  Christian,  civilized  Europe.  What  is  Alexander  of 
Russia,  at  his  coronation  in  Moscow,  surrounded  by  the 
nobility  of  his  Court,  in  the  presence  of  Tartar  tribes  and 
unnumbered  hosts  of  subjects  from  every  part  of  his  great 
empire — in  all  the  blaze  of  wealth,  the  splendor  of  regal 
magnificence,  the  pomp  of  religious  ceremony,  and  display 
of  military  enthusiasm,  mounting  the  throne  of  his  fathers 
and  claiming,  by  the  will  of  God,  to  be  the  head  of  the 
empire  and  the  church — what  is  he,  but  on  a  grander 
scale,  the  savage  chief  who  is  the  leader  of  his  tribe,  and 
the  only  recognized  interpreter  between  his  people  and 
the  Great  Spirit  they  worship  ?  And  what  are  the  nobility 
of  England — the  world's  proudest  and  best  aristocracy — 
with  their  princely  revenues  and  estates,  their  munificent 
liberality,  their  scholastic  cultivation,  and  refined  taste — 
what  are  these  but  the  civilized  representatives  of  the 
rude  warriors  of  the  forest,  who  are  privileged,  above  their 
tribe,  to  sit  around  the  council  fires  of  their  chiefs?  Why, 
the  very  name  king  is  derived  from  the  Tartar  khan  ;  and 
the  titles  of  nobility — duke,  earl,  count,  baron — can  be 
directly  traced  to  a  half-barbarous  period  of  history.  All 
kingly  government  is  a  compromise  between  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  present  and  the  barbarism  of  the  past  age  ; 
and  the  fact  that  monarchical  institutions  still  endure 
among  enlightened  people,  only  shows  how  power  and 
authority  intrench  themselves  in  custom,  and  survive  the 
necessity  that  called  them  into  being.  Because  these  in- 
stitutions are  anachronisms,  not  in  unison  with  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  wherever  they  now  exist  there  is  an  implied 
antagonism  between  the  government  and  the  people. 
Even  in  England — the  freest,  noblest,  most  powerful  king- 
dom in  the  world — the  people  themselves,  loyal  as  they  are, 
express  this  fact  in  the  very  name  they  give  themselves. 
They  are  not  citizens,  but  subjects — retaining,  thus,  the 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  29 

badge  of  old  servitude  to  power  and  present  vassalage  to 
tradition — while  on  the  continent  every  throne  is  girt 
round  with  bayonets,  until  Europe  swarms  with  more  than 
three  million  soldiers.  Think  of  that  !  Three  millions  of 
men,  taken  from  the  sweets  of  home  and  the  delights  of 
their  families,  to  enforce  kingly  prerogative  !  Three  mil- 
lions of  armed  men,  draining  the  life-blood  of  industry, 
to  enforce  social  order  !  And  what  kind  of  an  order  is  it, 
when  the  powers  that  be  tremble  at  the  falling  leaf,  and 
when  a  whisper  may  bring  down  the  avalanche  !  What 
kind  of  an  order  is  it,  when  the  sovereign  of  France,  the 
most  sagacious  man  of  Europe,  the  wisest  of  rulers,  a 
man  inheriting  genius,  and  disciplined  in  adversity  to 
hold  with  equal  hand  the  reins  of  power,  claiming  to  un- 
derstand the  spirit  of  his  age  and  "  the  logic  of  events," — 
when  he  signalizes  his  elevation  to  the  throne  by  the  ban- 
ishment of  two  thousand  men  for  political  sentiments, 
and  maintains  his  position  by  a  network  of  espionage 
that  keeps  spies  upon  every  household — by  corrupting 
public  opinion,  proscribing  free  speech,  and  manacling  the 
press  ?  What  kind  of  order,  when  the  peace  of  a  conti- 
nent, almost  of  the  civilized  world,  hangs  upon  the  life  of 
a  single  man  ?  Why,  suppose  for  an  instant,  that  the 
attack  of  Orsini  upon  the  life  of  Louis  Napoleon  had 
been  successful,  where  would  have  been  the  arm  strong 
enough  to  maintain  the  stability  of  European  affairs  ? 
Or,  if  to-day  the  Emperor  of  the  French  should  fall,  as 
he  may  fall,  by  the  poignard  of  the  assassin,  or  visitation 
of  sudden  disease,  who  can  predict  the  lawless  violence, 
the  scenes  of  anarchy  and  devastation  that  would  ensue  ? 
Who  fails  to  see  that  to-day  all  Europe  is  upon  a  mine 
that  a  moment  may  explode  ?  How  softly  they  move  ! — 
what  skill  of  diplomacy  ! — what  nice  handling  of  the  bal- 
ance of  power  !  Austria  decayed,  bankrupt,  an  incubus 
upon  human  rights,  is  to  be  maintained  intact  as  a  poise 
to  the  power  of  France.     Austria   must  hold  Hungary 


30 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


and  Venice  as  a  bulwark  against  revolution.  England 
must  increase  taxation,  strengthen  her  coast  defences,  and 
probably  resort  to  the  press-gang  to  fill  her  navy,  because 
France  has  an  army  of  five  hundred  thousand  men. 
Prussia  must  be  ready  for  war,  because  Napoleon  has  an- 
nexed Savoy.  Spain  stirs  the  old  embers  of  her  military 
enthusiasm,  in  hope  of  a  league  of  the  Latin  races ;  while 
Russia,  the  grim  old  giant  in  the  icy  fastness  of  the 
North,  consolidates  his  power,  and  everywhere  maintains 
the  iron  rule  of  military  discipline,  waiting  for  the  auspi- 
cious moment  when  the  secret  hatred  of  England  and 
France  shall  flash  into  open  rupture,  and  he  can  take  up 
his  capital  at  the  long  coveted  Golden  Horn  ! 

Yet  tell  me,  what  cause  of  quarrel  have  the  people  and 
races  of  Europe  ?  What  difference  of  interest  is  there 
between  the  people  of  Sardinia  and  Austria  ?  What 
advantage  is  it  to  the  ten  million  Germans  of  Aus- 
tria that  nine  million  Hungarians  and  three  million  Ital- 
ians should  be  held  subjects  to  the  crown  of  Hapsburg  ? 
How  many  English  homes  will  be  blessed  by  a  continen- 
tal war  ?  How  much  happier  will  the  Russian  people  be 
when  their  Czar  shall  issue  his  edicts  from  the  Darda- 
nelles ?  None,  none,  none  !  No,  the  evils  that  afflict  and 
the  terrors  that  menace  the  welfare  of  Europe  arise  from 
the  policy  and  structure  of  government — a  policy  and 
structure  not  the  expression  of  enlightened  sentiment, 
but  the  tradition  and  relic  of  old  barbarism. 

What  a  commentary  it  is  upon  monarchical  govern- 
ment, when  the  royal  house  of  England  is  afflicted  with 
hereditary  insanity — and  when  it  has  been  said  that  the 
Queen  is  kept  moving  from  Buckingham  to  Osborne,  and 
from  Osborne  to  Windsor,  and  from  Windsor  to  Scot- 
land, to  suppress  the  symptoms  of  that  terrible  malady, 
whose  seeds  nature  planted  in  her  constitution,  and  which 
a  future  King  may  inherit  with  his  crown  !  What  a  com- 
mentary it  is  when  the  English  Court  put  on  mourning 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  3 1 

for  the  death  of  the  King  of  Naples,  a  monster  who  made 
his  whole  kingdom  a  land  of  pillage  and  house  of  woe 
and  upon  whom  nature  set  the  seal  of  her  hatred  in  the 
loathsome  disease  of  which  he  died  ;  when  Victoria  her- 
self, a  model  as  she  is  of  private  and  domestic  excellence, 
is  still  proud  to  trace  her  royal  lineage  from  the  Italian 
house  of  Este — a  house  that  has  rilled  more  thrones  than 
the  Caesars,  and  whose  most  celebrated  members  were  the 
poisoners  Alexander,  Caesar,  and  Lucretia  Borgia  !  What 
a  commentary  it  is,  when  the  King  of  Prussia  lapses  not 
into  the  kingly  madness  of  a  Lear,  but  into  helpless, 
hopeless  imbecility  and  blear-eyed  idiocy !  What  a  terri- 
ble commentary  it  is,  when  the  young  King  of  Naples,  of 
the  family  of  the  Bourbons,  the  most  royal  house  in 
Europe,  can  take  off  the  blessing  of  nature  from  the  fair 
fields  of  Italy  and  blast  them  with  the  curse  of  royalty, 
when  his  prisons  are  filled  with  the  noblest  of  his  subjects, 
when  no  calling  is  so  high  as  to  be  above  his  hatred,  no 
pursuit  so  humble  to  be  beneath  his  oppression  ! 

Thanks  be  to  Him  the  recoil  has  come  ;  and  while  we 
are  rejoicing  in  our  freedom,  let  us  not  forget  that  the 
gallant  Garibaldi  and  his  bold  compatriots  to-day  are 
struggling  for  Italy.  May  the  God  of  battles,  who  gave 
our  fathers  victory,  smile  upon  their  banners  and  bless 
their  arms  with  success !  While  the  kings  and  rulers  of 
Europe  are  parcelling  their  dominions,  and  weighing  their 
prerogatives,  and  balancing  their  powers,  may  the  unseen 
spirit  of  the  people  make  itself  felt  in  majesty  and  in  awe! 
Its  time  must  come ;  it  may  sleep  through  the  ages,  but 
it  cannot  die.  There  are  agencies  strong  enough  to  re- 
press the  flames  of  ^Ltna  and  Vesuvius  !  Then  beware 
the  earthquake  !  Tyranny,  oppression,  tradition  may 
restrain  the  uprising  of  popular  power,  but  it  bides  its 
time.  It  waits  with  gathering  strength — it  comes  at  last, 
stronger  than  the  outbursting  tempest,  stronger  than  up- 
bursting  volcano,  stronger  than  all  things  save  the  roused 


32  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

wrath  of  GOD  ;  and  institutions,  gray  with  antiquity,  go 
down  before  it,  as  the  oak  of  a  thousand  years  is  scathed 
by  the  lightning,  or  the  city  that  centuries  have  built  is 
swallowed  by  the  earthquake. 

Happy  is  the  land,  blest  is  that  people,  where  this  spirit 
is  not  restrained  by  force  until  it  bursts  its  way  in  terror ; 
where  its  influences  are  life-giving  like  the  air  of  spring, 
not  devastating  like  the  storm  ;  where  individual  thought 
and  action  are  free,  and  government  the  spontaneous  re- 
sult of  free  thought :  And  that  is  the  theory  of  American 
politics.  Develop  manhood  in  the  individuals,  and  let 
government  be  the  reflection,  the  embodimeut,  the  incar- 
nation of  the  spirit  of  the  mass. 

"  The  world  is  governed  too  much."  "  That  govern- 
ment is  best  which  governs  least."  It  is  the  business  of 
government  to  punish  crimes  and  conduct  the  business 
necessarily  incident  to  political  organization,  and  let 
social  order  be  the  result  of  individual  worth.  We  have 
no  union  of  church  and  state,  for  the  spheres  of  their 
duties  are  distinct,  and  both  are  better,  and  one  is  holier, 
when  they  do  not  lean  on  each  other  for  support.  We 
have  no  standing  armies,  for  the  government  needs  none 
to  enforce  her  laws  at  home ;  and  we  know  that  in  danger 
from  abroad,  the  call  of  our  country  will  rally  from  moun- 
tain and  dale,  from  valley  and  hillside,  millions  of  citizens 
— soldiers,  who  for  her  sake  will  go  to  their  graves  as  joy- 
ously as  e'er  a  bridegroom  went  to  the  chamber  of  his  love, 
and  pour  out  their  life's  blood  in  her  defence  freely — freely 
as  I  give  these  words  unto  the  air,  feeling  in  their  heart 
of  hearts,  dulci,  dulci,  p atria  mori. 

We  have  no  entangling  alliances,  no  fears  of  unsettling 
the  balance  of  power,  for  its  foundations  are  broad  as 
popular  right. 


"  No  pent-up  Utica  contracts  our  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  ours." 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  33 

I  know  we  have  political  broils,  disgraceful  scenes  in  Con- 
gress, threats  of  dissolution  and  dismemberment ;  even 
these  are  better  than  the  dead-sea  calm  of  despotism. 
They  are  but  foam  upon  the  waves — they  will  pass  away 
with  the  hour.  The  people  everywhere  are  true.  All 
over  the  land,  millions  of  patriotic  pulses  keep  time  with 
the  great  national  heart  that  is  throbbing  beneath  the 
framework  of  the  government,  Oh,  may  it  throb  while 
the  sun  stands  and  the  earth  rolls,  and  may  its  last  pulsa- 
tion mark  the  moment  when  time  and  eternity  are  lost  in 
the  being  of  God  ! 

It  must  be  true  that  free  institutions  are  the  natural 
expression  of  humanity  in  its  best  estate.  It  must  be  that 
free  homes,  unrestricted  property,  wealth  passing  from 
hand  to  hand,  are  better  things  than  the  feudal  possessions 
and  lordly  privileges  of  a  Metternich,  a  Westminster,  and 
a  Derby.  It  must  be  that  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
popular  intelligence  and  free  thought,  are  more  to  be  de- 
sired even  than  the  congregated  learning  of  a  Gottingen, 
a  Cambridge,  and  an  Oxford — that  a  church,  faithful  only 
to  its  God,  is  holier  than  a  church  loyal  to  the  state — that 
a  free  people,  under  their  own  vines  and  fig-trees,  pros- 
perous and  happy,  is  a  grander  sight  and  more  pleasing 
to  the  eye  of  Omnipotence,  than  the  genius  of  a  Shake- 
speare, a  Voltaire,  and  a  Goethe.  I  know  that  sometimes 
the  popular  spirit  flashes  out  as  a  consuming  fire  ;  that  in 
popular  governments  there  is  sometimes  disregard  of  law  ; 
that  there  are  crimes  by  mobs ;  that  vested  rights,  the 
sacredness  of  property,  and  yet  greater  sacredness  of  per- 
son, have  been  violated  by  popular  fury ;  but  if  all  these 
were  collected  together,  they  would  not  fill  pages,  where 
monarchical  oppression  has  written  volumes  in  blood.  I 
know  there  are  some  good  men  who  despair  of  the  Re- 
public, and  some  wise  men  who  hold  there  is  a  levelling 
tendency  in  democratic  institutions  that  destroys  the 
highest  order  of  intellect :  that  in  a  republic,  public  opin- 


34 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


ion  becomes  a  tyrant  over  individual  thought ;  and  they  say 
the  American  mind  is  unequal  to  the  production  of  a  work 
of  genius.  But  they  have  not  judged  us  aright.  They 
have  been  looking  for  free  thought  to  flow  in  the  channels 
custom  has  hewn  through  the  centuries,  and  its  course  has 
been  like  the  sweeping  current  of  the  river,  through  devi- 
ous winding,  over  plunging  cataract  and  foaming  rapids. 
They  have  expected  us  to  write  books — we  have  been 
building  States.  They  have  expected  us  to  paint  Trans- 
figurations and  Madonnas — we  have  subdued  the  wilder- 
ness. They  have  been  waiting  for  an  Iliad  or  Paradise 
Lost — we  have  extemporized  an  empire  on  the  Pacific. 
They  have  looked  for  a  beautiful  development  of  mind, 
like  the  blossoming  tree  under  the  pruning  hand  of  the 
gardener — and  we  have  been  growing  up  like  the  pine  of 
the  mountains  or  gnarled  oak  of  the  forest,  that,  nurtured 
only  by  the  elements,  pierce  the  earth  with  their  roots  and 
twine  them  among  the  rock,  to  fling  out  their  arms  to  the 
thunder  and  breast  the  storms  of  a  thousand  years. 

But  nature  is  wiser  than  men.  Men  looked  for  a  Saviour 
to  come  in  clouds  of  glory — He  came  in  the  manger.  They 
sought  for  highest  truth  in  the  teachings  of  star-eyed 
philosophy — it  came  in  the  lives  of  the  poor  fishermen  of 
Galilee.  They  expected  the  blessings  of  progress  and 
refinement  from  the  productions  of  the  fine  arts,  the 
vaulted  temple,  the  speaking  marble  and  painting,  elo- 
quent with  beauty — it  came  in  the  works  of  the  brawny- 
armed  inventors  in  mechanics. 

Nature  everywhere  teaches  democracy ;  and  political 
truth  is  not  the  coinage  of  the  brain  of  genius,  nor  the 
discovery  of  courts  and  senates,  but  the  outspoken  instinct 
of  the  popular  heart.  In  all  history,  that  voice  has  sought 
to  be  heard.  Wise  men,  confiding  in  the  devices  of  their 
own  hearts,  have  disregarded  it.  In  the  conflicts  of  the 
ages  it  has  been  lost ;  but  it  rang  out  trumpet-toned  in 
glorious  'Seventy-six. 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  35 

It  is  a  narrow  view  of  history  to  suppose  that  the 
American  Revolution  began  at  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  was  finished  at  the  close  of  the  war.  It  was, 
it  is,  the  struggling  for  fuller  utterance  of  ideas  that  are 
as  old  as  the  first  battle-fields  of  freedom  ;  and  it  will  not 
be  complete  while  there  is  one  battle  for  freedom  to  be 
fought  on  tented  field  or  in  the  resounding  senate. 
Wherever  genius  has  spoken,  or  a  martyr  died,  or  a 
soldier  triumphed  for  political  truth,  there  has  been  its 
prophet,  its  victim,  and  its  hero.  Here  it  received  its 
baptismal  name  and  strongest  impulse.  It  is  a  current  in 
human  affairs  that  will  widen  and  deepen  and  strengthen 
in  future  history.  You  and  I,  and  all  of  us,  are  actors  in 
it,  and  its  future  triumphs  may  not  be  less  glorious  than 
its  past  achievements. 

If  there  be  one  here  whose  life  shall  stretch  as  far  into 
the  future  as  does  that  of  the  soldier  of  'Seventy-six  into 
the  past,  what  a  country  will  he  behold  in  ours  if  we,  the 
men  of  to-day,  are  true  to  ourselves  and  the  teachings  of 
our  fathers.  The  dream  of  the  first  Napoleon,  to  con- 
solidate all  Europe  into  one  empire,  will  be  eclipsed  in  the 
destiny  of  the  "  Imperial  Republic,"  containing  wider 
territory  and  greater  elements  of  wealth,  power,  and 
grandeur  than  all  Europe  combined. 

It  is  true  that  expanse  of  territory,  and  powerful 
nations,  are  not  essential  to  the  birth  and  nurture  of  great 
men.  Scotland  had  her  Bruce,  Switzerland  her  Tell. 
Attica — that  made  the  history  of  Greece  the  glory  of  the 
world — where  Plato  lived  and  Socrates  died,  Pericles 
triumphed  and  ^Eschylus  sang — was  not  as  large  as  San 
Joaquin  County.  But  great  political  principles  should  be 
represented  by  great  national  powers  ;  and  in  the  future 
conflicts  of  freedom,  the  victory  should  be  decided  by  the 
giant  arm  of  the  Republic  of  the  West.  Oh  !  may  that 
arm  be  nerved  with  right,  clothed  with  strength,  con- 
secrated to  justice.     May  each   circling  sun  shine  here 


36  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

upon  a  people  more  free,  more  powerful,  more  happy, 
more  blessed — the  leader  of  the  nations,  the  champion  of 
truth,  the  hope  of  mankind  !  And  when  at  the  Last  Day 
the  roll  of  the  nations  shall  be  called — when  Egypt  shall 
come  up  in  the  dusky  garments  of  the  night — Greece, 
radiant  in  the  glory  of  Intellect — Rome,  mailed  and  pano- 
plied in  Arms — Italy,  lustrous  in  the  beauty  of  Art — 
Germany,  clothed  in  the  starry  vesture  of  Poetry — France, 
gemmed  and  jewelled  with  Philosophy  and  Science — Eng- 
land, clad  in  the  majesty  of  Law  and  splendor  of  Com- 
merce— may  America  come  robed  in  Truth,  sandalled  with 
Peace,  girdled  with  the  Stars  of  Light,  and  crowned  with 
the  Diadem  of  Freedom  !  • 

But  if  we  prove  ourselves  unworthy  the  priceless  heri- 
tage of  freedom  ;  if  we  betray  the  cause  we  should  die  to 
save ;  if  anarchy  and  disunion  "  come  down  on  us  like 
night "  ;  if  that  divine  abstraction  we  worship  as  our 
country  be  utterly  destroyed — still,  somewhere,  in  the  ages 
to  come,  through  some  race,  the  cause  of  Freedom  must 
triumph.  Jehovah,  when  He  made  man  in  His  own 
image,  higher  than  all  governments,  nobler  than  all  insti- 
tutions, pledged  His  right  arm  for  its  support.  It  is  the 
cause  of  Right.  Circumstances  may  obscure,  but  can  no 
more  destroy  it  "  than  clouds  can  blot  the  sun  from  the 
universe."  Amid  the  storms  of  Time,  the  tempest  shock 
of  War,  the  blinding  mists  of  Error,  and  darkening  clouds 
of  Fate — still  from  His  throne  on  high  He  reigns  supreme  ; 
and  still,  in  sunshine  and  in  storm,  the  soul  of  man  glasses 
His  awful  form  / 

REMARKS 

BEFORE  THE  UNION   CLUB,    SACRAMENTO,    CAL.,    MAY,    l86l. 

I  am  always  reluctant  to  respond  to  a  call  to  make  a 
speech,  from  a  conviction  on  my  part  that  talking  is  not 
my  forte.     I  used  once  to  belong  to  a  club,  any  member 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  37 

of  which,  when  called  upon  for  a  song,  if  he  could  not  or 
would  not  sing,  could  only  make  his  peace  by  telling  a 
story.  Perhaps,  acting  on  the  same  rule,  you  will  accept 
from  me  a  story  in  lieu  of  a  speech.  But  my  story  will 
not  have  even  the  merit  of  novelty,  for  you  will  all  remem- 
ber having  seen  it  in  Noah  Webster's  spelling-book.  It 
was  about  an  old  farmer  who,  in  walking  through  his 
orchard,  found  a  rude  boy  in  one  of  his  trees.  He  ex- 
postulated with  the  boy,  but  he  only  laughed  in  return. 
He  then  threw  tufts  of  grass  at  him,  but  the  boy  pelted 
him  back  with  apples  ;  and,  finally,  the  old  man  was  driven 
to  try  what  virtue  there  was  in  stones,  and  that  brought 
the  young  rascal  bawling  and  sprawling  to  the  ground. 

Sirs,  it  has  been  our  fortune,  or  rather  misfortune,  to 
see  that  schoolboy  fable  exemplified  upon  a  giant  scale  in 
our  day  and  our  country.  Our  esteemed  relative,  the 
venerable  Uncle  Samuel,  walking  through  his  orchard, 
has  found  a  very  rude  boy  in  his  apple  tree  ;  and  when 
the  old  man  entreats  him  to  come  down,  the  young  devil 
begins  to  pelt  him  with  "  dornicks  "  with  which  his  pocket 
has  been  filled.  I  suppose  it  has  been  ascertained  by  this 
time  that  that  is  a  game  which  two  can  play  at,  and  that 
there  are  stones  to  be  received  as  well  as  thrown,  and  I 
shall  be  very  much  mistaken  if  the  result  of  this  contro- 
versy does  not  verify  the  moral  of  the  old  fable. 

This  coercive  policy,  as  some  have  been  pleased  to  term 
it,  this  policy  of  force,  has  not  been  adopted  from  choice, 
nor  is  it  the  result  of  calm  deliberation  and  counsel.  It 
is  the  inexorable  necessity  of  the  hour  ;  it  is  the  terrible 
logic  of  events,  that  have  brought  about  this  bloody 
sequence.  Think  of  it  a  moment.  What  has  been  done  ? 
Mints  have  been  plundered,  arsenals  have  been  seized, 
forts  have  been  attacked,  the  flag  had  been  dishonored, 
and  armed  bands  had  threatened  the  Capital  itself. 
Treason  had  clutched  the  Republic  by  the  throat.  There 
was  no  time  for  deliberation.    The  treason  must  be  struck 


38  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

down  and  crushed  out,  though  it  should  roll  back  the 
tide  of  our  material  prosperity  for  a  hundred  years.  Bet- 
ter, infinitely  better,  that  the  national  existence  should 
cease — cease  as  it  came,  amid  the  thunders  of  an  honora- 
ble warfare — than  that  we  should  live  to  become  a  byword 
and  a  reproach,  a  hissing  and  a  scorn.  Why,  we  have 
been  told  by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  citizens  of 
Sacramento,  a  man  whose  genius  and  accomplished  intel- 
lect it  is  my  pride  to  admire,  that  if  Union  is  war,  and 
disunion  is  peace,  he  is  for  disunion,  and,  I  apprehend, 
the  argument  for  disunion  was  never  before  so  plainly 
and  sententiously  stated.  But  whoever  expects  disunion 
to  be  followed  by  a  permanent  and  enduring  peace,  takes 
counsel  of  his  hopes,  and  whoever  believes  the  Union  is 
continual  war,  takes  counsel  of  his  fears. 

Disunion  !  What  is  it  ?  Separation  to-day,  but  to- 
morrow disintegration  into  petty  States — miserable  jarring 
States,  each  compelled  to  keep  up  its  army  and  navy, 
thousands  of  irritating  questions  between  them,  leading 
to  continual  warfare.  The  difference  between  Union  and 
Disunion,  as  a  question  of  peace  and  war,  is  this :  With 
Union,  we  may  have  a  sharp,  severe  struggle — while  with 
Disunion,  there  would  never  be  peace.  Union  with  war 
is  like  one  of  those  sharp  fevers  that  the  system  can  throw 
off  and  rebuild  itself  in  manly  vigor,  but  Disunion  is  like 
one  of  those  maladies  that  fasten  themselves  upon  the 
very  bones  and  joints,  and  leave  no  moment  of  ease,  but 
every  day  a  living  death.  What  is  it  they  ask  when  they 
talk  of  disunion  ?  This  is  no  common  treason,  no  petty 
conspiracy  which,  like  that  of  Catiline,  can  be  told  in  a 
few  pages  of  history.  This  is  a  giant  rebellion,  the  most 
august  treason  of  all  time.  What  hopes  do  they  ask  us 
to  blast  ? 

Only  last  year  what  a  career  opened  before  the  Repub- 
lic. It  was  the  dream  of  the  first  Napoleon  to  consolidate 
all  Europe  into  one  Empire.     What  a  magnificent  concep- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  39 

tion  was  that  !  But  daring  and  grand  as  it  was,  it  will  be 
eclipsed  and  darkened  by  the  glorious  destiny  of  this 
American  Union  if  only  we  are  true  to  it  and  keep  it  true 
to  the  stars.  It  has  a  climate  more  varied,  resources  more 
inexhaustible,  and  a  great  and  intelligent  people  speaking 
one  language  and  learned  in  the  lessons  of  freedom  from 
their  infancy. 

Would  to  God  that  this  Union  could  have  been  held 
together  by  the  moral  ties  of  mutual  love,  and  of  common 
hopes,  by  the  material  ties  of  common  interest  and  com- 
mercial intercourse.  But  rather  than  that  this  Union 
should  be  broken  in  a  moment  of  passion,  let  it  be  girdled 
with  steel  welded  in  the  furnace  of  battle.  For  I  tell  you 
that  in  time  the  real  union  of  love  and  of  the  ties  of 
interest  will  grow  up  again  as  it  was.  The  war  of  the 
rebellion  will  be  long  and  bloody,  for  the  resources  of  the 
South  have  been  wonderfully  underrated  ;  but  about  the 
ultimate  result  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

What  is  it  this  rebellion  is  fighting?  It  is  in  arms 
against  the  moral  sentiments  of  the  civilized  world,  and 
against  the  sound  conservative  loyal  sentiment  in  their 
own  midst.  It  wars  against  the  memories  of  the  past 
and  the  hopes  of  the  future.  It  wars  against  the  sturdy 
patience  of  the  East,  the  indomitable  courage  of  the 
North,  and  the  fiery  and  impetuous  valor  of  the  West, 
and  I  tell  you  the  result  is  already  written  in  the  books 
of  fate,  and  Jeff.  Davis  can  no  more  change  it  than  he  can 
tear  out  the  iron  leaves  of  the  book  of  destiny. 

But  there  arises  a  practical  question.  This  war,  for  war 
there  must  be,  is  fought  for  us.  It  is  fought  for  you  and 
for  me,  and  shall  we  not  bear  our  proportion  of  the  bur- 
thens? We  are  the  only  State  really  benefited  by  the 
war,  and  may  look  forward  with  hope  to  the  increased 
impetus  it  is  to  give  to  the  interests  of  California.  Is  it 
right  that  we  should  enjoy  these  benefits  and  not  share 
the  burthens  ?    What  can  we  do  ?  If  we  cannot  contribute 


40 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


men,  and  we  are  so  far  away  that  there  will  be  no  call  on 
us  for  men,  we  can  at  least  give  the  sinews  of  war  ;  we  can 
furnish  money.  What  is  it  they  are  giving  at  the  East, 
and  how  small  a  sacrifice  comparatively  is  asked  from  our 
hands  ? 

Have  you  not  read,  and  did  not  your  blood  kindle 
while  you  read,  of  that  young  lad  who  came  to  the  recruit- 
ing office,  and  when  he  said  he  was  not  of  age,  was  told 
that  he  could  not  enlist  without  his  father's  consent. 
"  But,"  said  the  lad,  "  I  have  no  father."  "  Well,  then," 
said  the  officer,  "  you  must  have  your  mother's  consent." 
And  the  old  mother  came  with  him  to  the  office  and  said, 
"  He  is  my  last,  my  all,  but  I  give  him  to  my  country  !  " 
Have  not  you  read,  and  was  not  your  heart  in  your  throat 
while  you  read,  of  that  young  Massachusetts  boy  who 
fell  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore,  and  while  his  life  was  ebb- 
ing away,  he  was  asked  why  one  so  young  should  leave 
his  home,  and  could  only  whisper  with  dying  lips :  "  The 
Flag !  "  Have  you  not  read,  and  did  not  your  cheeks 
crimson  while  you  read,  of  that  other  son  of  Massachu- 
setts, who,  while  his  life  blood  was  ebbing,  sprang  up  and, 
gazing  around,  exclaimed,  "  God  bless  the  stars  and 
stripes !  "  Yes,  God  bless  the  stars  and  stripes !  May 
they  wave  in  triumph  above  the  smoke  of  battle  and  the 
clash  of  arms,  till  they  shall  again  float  in  peace  from  the 
Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  and  from  sea  to  sea ! 

ORATION 

DELIVERED  IN  MICHIGAN  BLUFF,  CAL.,   JULY   4,    l86l. 

The  place  where  we  have  assembled  is  eloquent  with 
the  voice  of  Freedom.  Liberty  is  Nature's  gospel,  and 
mountains  are  among  the  grandest  of  its  teachers.1  Moun- 
tains were  consecrated  by  the  presence  of  God,  when  He 

1  The  celebration  was  on  the  top  of  "  Sugar  Loaf,"  an  eminence  that 
commands  a  magnificent  view  of  mountain  scenery. 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  4 1 

revealed  himself  to  Moses  upon  Sinai ;  they  were  baptized 
with  the  blood  of  our  Saviour  when  he  died  upon  Calvary. 
They  are  associated  with  the  grandest  passages  of  history. 
In  their  rocky  fastnesses,  freedom  has  ever  taken  refuge 
in  her  weakness,  until  she  could  grow  strong  enough  to 
battle  for  her  rights  upon  the  plains.  To-day,  before 
these  great  altars  Nature  has  built  to  Liberty,  in  this 
favored  region  that  has  never  known  the  presence  of  a 
King,  or  footprint  of  a  Slave,  we  have  gathered  together, 
without  one  pulse  of  trembling  for  our  country's  fate, 
without  one  thrill  of  fear  for  its  destiny,  with  no  fore- 
boding of  eventual  danger  from  lurking  lightnings  in 
gathering  clouds ;  we  are  not  here  to  celebrate  a  Nation's 
Birthday,  not  to  contemplate  its  grave  ! 

But  to-day,  this  Anniversary  so  dear  to  our  personal 
recollections,  so  sacred  by  national  associations,  so  hal- 
lowed in  all  history,  comes  to  us  under  circumstances  of 
more  deep  and  portentous  interest  than  ever  before. 

We  have  met  together  in  peace.  Nature  smiles  upon 
us.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  our  summer  harvest.  The 
year  is  plentiful.  Our  gardens  are  blooming,  our  orchards 
and  vineyards  bending  with  ripening  fruit.  Our  State  is 
growing  in  population  and  wealth.  We  are  still  laying 
bare  the  golden  treasures  of  the  mountains,  and  develop- 
ing the  agricultural  riches  of  the  plains — but  our  hearts 
are  ill  at  ease.  Again  "  our  brethren  are  in  the  field. 
Every  breeze  that  sweeps  from  the  East  brings  to  our 
ears  clash  of  resounding  arms."  Armies  are  mustering, 
such  as  the  Continent  has  never  known  before, — not  now 
to  repel  foreign  invasion,  or  carry  the  terrors  of  the  Re- 
public into  unfriendly  lands,  but  sons  of  the  sires  who 
fought  at  Bunker  Hill  and  Yorktown,  at  Moultrie  and 
Saratoga,  have  met  in  deadly  conflict  over  the  torn  and 
bloody  garments  of  the  Nation's  glory,  around  the  tomb 
of  Washington. 

To-day,  while  our  Capital  is  an  armed  camp,  the  Na- 


42  NE  W TON  BOO  TH. 

tional  Congress  in  convened.  Not  now  to  discuss  measures 
of  fiscal  policy,  or  foreign  relations,  or  the  organization  of 
Territories,  but  while  their  halls  are  draped  in  mourning 
for  the  loss  of  that  popular  chieftain,  statesman,  and 
patriot,  who  was  called  from  us  in  the  hour  of  peril,  they 
are  to  deliberate  upon  the  awfully  solemn  question — what 
shall  we  do  that  the  Nation  may  be  saved  ? 

In  the  presence  of  this,  all  the  questions  that  have 
arisen  in  our  history  since  the  organization  of  the  Govern- 
ment sink  into  comparative  insignificance  ;  even  that  of 
our  independence,  decided  eighty-five  years  ago,  was 
scarcely  so  important.  For  the  separation  of  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies  from  the  British  Crown,  was  simply  a  question 
of  time.  By  their  growth,  the  Colonies  must  one  day  have 
fallen  from  the  parent  stem.  The  bigotry  of  an  ignorant 
King,  and  the  want  of  practical  statesmanship  in  his  min- 
isters, precipitated  an  event  which  no  wisdom  and  no 
statesmanship  could  have  postponed  more  than  one 
generation.  The  Colonies  were  driven  to  achieve  their 
independence  by  war,  when  it  might  eventually  have  been 
attained  in  peace,  but  Heaven  be  praised  for  that  war. 
It  vitalized  and  intensified  the  principles  upon  which  it 
was  fraught  until  they  became  a  part  of  the  blood  and 
brain  and  living  tissue  of  the  Republic.  It  gave  unity 
to  the  National  life — solidity  to  the  National  character ; 
it  gave  us  the  great  names  and  sacred  memories  of 
the  Revolution,  and  it  gave  to  all  time  the  name  that 
illumines  all  the  ages  with  its  sun-like  purity — the  peerless 
Washington. 

But  the  question  to  be  decided  now,  is  one  neither  of 
time  nor  manner.  It  is  far  above  all  considerations  of 
peace  or  war.  It  is,  shall  this  people  have  a  Constitu- 
tional Republican  Government  ?  Shall  we  have  an  Amer- 
ican Continental  policy  ?  Shall  we  go  forward  in  the 
enjoyment  of  freedom,  or  backward  toward  feudal  des- 
potism ?  For  if  the  Government  established  by  our  fathers 


ORA  TIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  43 

is  to  dissolve  "  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision  "  at  the 
first  touch  of  organized  resistance — if  it  can  be  overthrown 
at  the  will  and  pleasure  of  a  factious  minority,  then  was 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  a  mistake — then  was  the 
blood  of  the  Revolution  shed  in  vain — then  is  the  Consti- 
tution a  mere  Utopian  scheme,  a  piece  of  rhetorical  fine 
writing,  for  the  business  and  purposes  of  Government  not 
worth  the  parchment  on  which  it  is  written. 

Let  us  for  a  few  moments  go  back  to  the  days  when 
the  Constitution  was  framed — let  us  see  how  it  brought 
order  out  of  chaos — strength  out  of  weakness,  and  we  may 
learn  to  estimate  the  wisdom  of  its  provisions,  and  its 
priceless  value  to  this  people. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  when  the  war  of  the 
Revolution  was  over,  our  fathers  had  overcome  the  diffi- 
culties in  their  path,  and  entered  at  once  upon  a  career  of 
prosperity. 

In  the  first  years  of  peace,  the  trying  nature  of  their 
position  more  clearly  revealed  itself  than  ever  before.  A 
war  develops  within  a  people  a  feverish  and  impulsive 
strength ;  it  kindles  the  fires  of  martial  spirit  until  the 
patriotism  of  the  whole  country  is  ablaze  with  military 
enthusiasm.  While  it  continues,  no  individual  sacrifice 
seems  too  great  for  the  general  good.  In  the  presence  of 
an  armed  foe  life  and  property  are  held  as  nothing,  and 
love  of  country  rises  to  the  most  sublime  and  disinterested 
efforts.  Active  resistance  is  easier  than  passive  endurance. 
And  this  is  as  true  of  individual  men  as  of  nations.  In 
the  first  presence  of  calamity  the  soul  puts  on  all  its 
strength  ;  but  after  the  struggle  is  over  the  hour  of  weak- 
ness and  despondency  comes.  In  cases  of  loss  of  fortune 
or  means,  when  fire  has  consumed  house  and  goods,  when 
the  landslide  has  filled  up  the  mine,  the  man  arises  to 
acts  of  heroic  energy.  His  spirit  grapples  with  misfortune, 
with  the  determination  to  conquer  it.  But,  afterwards, 
when  the  excitement  is  over,  when  the  old  routine  is  re- 


44  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

sumed,  when  his  loss  presses  home  upon  him,  when  debts 
harass  and  duns  annoy,  when  he  finds  his  business 
crippled  and  his  family  stripped  of  the  comforts  of  life, 
then,  unless  he  is  made  of  steel,  his  heartstrings  begin  to 
break  and  his  spirits  to  sink.  And  it  was  in  a  condition 
like  this  our  country  was  left  when  the  war  of  the  Revolu- 
tion closed.  Poor  at  the  commencement  of  the  struggle, 
at  its  close  it  was  bankrupt.  The  public  expenses  of  the 
war  were  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  millions  of  dol- 
lars— a  sum  whose  value  then,  compared  with  the  value 
of  money  to-day,  would  be  equal  to  five  hundred  million 
dollars.  The  population  of  the  States  was  about  equal  to 
the  present  population  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  the 
entire  wealth  of  the  country  not  so  great  as  that  of  the 
Empire  State  now.  But  the  actual  public  outlay  was  only 
a  small  proportion  of  the  pecuniary  losses  of  the  war. 
Property  has  been  destroyed,  business  broken  up,  industry 
paralyzed,  the  currency  so  deranged  that  forty  dollars  of 
Continental  paper  were  only  worth  one  dollar  in  silver — 
and  this  in  the  face  of  law,  making  it  a  legal  tender — 
while  paper  issued  by  the  State  of  Virginia  was  afterwards 
redeemed  by  the  payment  of  one  dollar  for  a  thousand. 
The  number  of  soldiers  in  the  Federal  forces  in  the  Revo- 
lution averaged  about  fifty  thousand  men  (the  same  ratio 
to  population  to-day  would  give  us  an  army  of  five  hun- 
dred thousand),  and  this  was  a  great  drain  upon  the  pro- 
ductive capacity  of  the  country.  The  public  debts  of  the 
General  and  State  Governments  when  peace  was  concluded 
amounted  to  seventy  millions  of  dollars — a  crushing  sum 
to  the  people  upon  whom  it  rested  in  the  hour  of  their 
weakness  and  poverty.  The  friendly  alliance  of  France, 
which  had  been  a  resource  for  money  as  a  last  resort,  was 
withdrawn.  How  poor  was  the  Confederacy,  then  !  Con- 
gress established  a  Mint,  "  but  its  operations  were  confined 
to  the  coinage  of  a  few  tons  of  copper  cents  !  Oh  !  that 
the  gold  fields  of  California  could  have  been  anticipated 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  45 

then  !  The  whole  army  was  discharged  except  eighty 
men  in  garrison  at  Pittsburgh  and  West  Point.  The  ex- 
penses of  the  General  Government  for  the  year  1783  were 
estimated  at  four  hundred  and  fifty-five  thousand  dollars. 
In  addition  to  this,  for  the  payment  of  interest  and  instal- 
ment on  public  debt,  about  three  millions  of  dollars  were 
asked  from  the  States — in  all,  about  the  sum  the  Govern- 
ment now  expends  every  month  in  time  of  peace.  Yet, 
so  weak  was  the  Government  and  so  poor  the  people,  that 
this  demand  was  not  complied  with  or  enforced. 

Great  Britain,  who  had  felt  our  strength  in  war,  saw  our 
weakness  in  peace,  and  refused  to  comply  with  her  treaty 
and  withdraw  her  garrisons  from  our  frontiers.  We  had 
political  independence,  it  is  true,  but  we  had  scarcely  any- 
thing else.  Is  it  strange  that  there  were  repinings  and 
discontents?  Is  it  wonderful  that  there  were  many  who 
looked  back  to  the  comparatively  affluent  days  of  the 
Colonies  with  regret  ?  The  country  was  in  debt  to  the 
officers  of  the  army  and  could  not  pay.  Soldiers  who 
had  shed  their  blood  upon  her  battle-fields  found  that 
they  must  spend  the  balance  of  their  days  amid  the  hard- 
ships of  poverty,  while  private  fortunes  for  the  most  part 
were  in  the  hands  of  those  who  least  deserved  them — the 
harpies  who  had  grown  rich  by  army  contracts  and  specu- 
lations upon  their  country's  distress.  But  greater  perhaps 
than  all  these  calamities  was  the  disheartening  conviction 
that  the  Government,  as  then  organized,  was  a  failure. 
Acts  of  Congress  were  mere  recommendations  to  the 
States,  which  they  could  assent  to  or  annul ;  there  was  no 
binding  sanction  to  laws ;  nullification  was  practical  ; 
secession  was  threatened  ;  the  public  mind  seemed  to  be 
demoralized.  There  were  schemes  about  dividing  the 
country  into  two  or  three  confederacies  ;  there  were  specu- 
lations about  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  States  ;  there 
were  propositions  to  place  the  country  under  the  protec- 
tion   of    a    European   power ;    there  were  advocates   of 


46  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

monarchy,  and  a  strong  tendency  towards  total  anarchy. 
The  northern  counties  of  North  Carolina,  in  defiance  of 
authority,  organized  themselves  into  an  insurgent  State 
under  the  name  of  Frankland,  and  an  armed  rebellion 
gathered  headway  in  Massachusetts  under  the  leadership 
of  Daniel  Shay,  a  former  officer  of  the  Revolution,  until 
it  was  sympathized  with  by  one  third  of  the  population 
of  that  State.  Its  forces  intimidated  loyal  citizens,  broke 
up  State  courts,  and  threatened  the  State  capitol. 

The  country  was  aroused  to  a  sense  of  danger  and  im- 
pending dissolution,  and  it  resolved  to  do  then  what  is 
the  first  duty  of  the  Government  now — put  down  armed 
rebellion  by  force  of  arms  ;  resolved  to  do  then  that  which 
we  must  maintain  to-day — establish  a  National  Govern- 
ment— one  whose  theory  would  forbid  secession  or  nulli- 
fication, whose  authority  should  flow  directly  from  the 
whole  people,  and  whose  laws  should  operate  directly 
upon  all  the  people ;  a  Government  clothed  with  the 
attributes  of  justice  and  armed  with  the  prerogatives  of 
sovereignty.  A  Convention  met  to  frame  a  Constitution 
— Washington  presided  over  it,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamil- 
ton, Pinckney,  Sherman,  and  the  leading  men  of  the 
States  were  members  of  it.  No  parliamentary  body  ever 
met  that  embodied  more  political  wisdom  and  practical 
sagacity.  Their  deliberations  were  long  and  difficult. 
There  were  jealousies  between  the  large  and  small  States, 
between  the  free  and  slave  States,  to  be  reconciled.  States 
claiming  indefinite  property  in  unsettled  territories  were 
to  be  propitiated.  National  order  was  to  be  secured  and 
popular  rights  protected.  The  first  resolution  passed  was 
that  we  must  have  a  National  Government.  The  first 
words  agreed  upon  are : 

"  We,  the  People  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a 
more  perfect  Union,  establish  Justice,  insure  Domestic 
Tranquillity,  provide  for  the  Common  Defence,  promote  the 
General  Welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  Liberty  to  our- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  4? 

selves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Con- 
stitution for  the  United  States  of  America." 

What  a  grand  ring  do  the  old  words  have  !  There  is 
not  a  flaw  of  secession  in  them  ! 

And  among  the  last  clauses  adopted  was  this  :  "  This 
Constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States  which 
shall  be  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties  made 
or  which  shall  be  made  under  authority  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  the 
Judges  of  every  State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything 
in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding."  The  Constitution,  as  agreed  upon, 
was  submitted  to  the  ordeal  of  public  discussion.  Every 
clause  was  canvassed,  every  word  weighed.  It  was  rati- 
fied by  the  vote  of  the  people.  It  was  accepted  by  every 
State  as  the  supreme  law.  Every  day  since  has  demon- 
strated its  wisdom.  Its  history  is  its  eulogy.  Under  its 
beneficent  operation,  a  nation  distracted  at  home,  scoffed 
at  abroad,  in  seventy  years  has  overleaped  ten  centuries 
of  history,  and  grown  to  be  one  of  the  great  powers  of 
the  earth,  and  seems  destined  to  become,  in  the  lifetime 
of  a  child  now  born,  in  the  life  of  some  one  who  is  present 
here  to-day,  first  among  the  great — the  imperial  nation  of 
the  world  !  And  there  are  men  living  who  can  remember 
when  this  Government  was  organized.  Why,  think  of  it ! 
It  was  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  from  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims  until  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  In 
that  one  hundred  and  seventy  years  the  country  had 
attained  a  population  of  three  millions  ;  its  settlements, 
with  difficult  communications  and  restricted  intercourse, 
reaching  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  and  back  to  the 
Alleghanies.  It  had  no  foreign  commerce  worthy  the 
name.  In  seventy  years  its  population  had  increased  to 
thirty  millions — its  settlements  span  the  continent — its 
commerce  searches  the  world — for  internal  trade  it  num- 
bers more  miles  of  railroad  than  all  the  world  beside  ;  and 


48  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

soon  the  lightning  will  flash  intelligence  from  sea  to  sea 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  this  was  to  be  the  fore- 
runner of  one  to  come  after  it  mightier  than  it — of  those 
bands  of  iron  that  were  to  girdle  the  nation  with  a  zone 
of  love,  and  wed  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  with  an  indis- 
soluble marriage-tie ! 

Do  you  expect  to  theorize  a  Government  into  existence 
now  that  shall  improve  upon  these  magnificent  results  ? 
Has  the  Union  proved  a  failure,  that  secession  must  be 
tried  ?  It  is  a  part  of  the  blessed  history  of  the  Constitu- 
tion under  which  we  have  so  prospered,  that  it  has  struck 
down  no  man's  rights,  it  has  infringed  upon  no  man's 
liberty ;  it  has  impressed  no  man  into  its  service  by  land 
or  upon  sea  ;  it  has  never  laid  a  finger's  weight  upon  any 
citizen  ;  it  has  had  no  tax-gatherers  in  our  midst  to  devour 
our  substance  ;  it  has  sent  out  no  dreaded  conscriptions  to 
carry  terror  to  our  homes.  We  have  grown  so  accustomed 
to  its  beneficence  that  we  are  as  forgetful  of  its  blessings 
as  we  are  of  God's  great  gifts,  the  sunshine  and  the  air. 
We  enjoy  them  without  a  thought  of  whence  they  came, 
or  where  our  thanks  are  due.  Against  a  Government  so 
benignant,  a  sway  so  mild,  when  was  the  hand  of  rebel- 
lion ever  uplifted  before  ?  History  is  full  of  the  records 
of  revolutions  ;  men  have  been  driven  to  desperation  by 
famine,  they  have  been  goaded  to  resistance  by  tyranny, 
they  have  taken  up  arms  to  redress  violated  rights ;  but 
when  before,  since  the  world  began,  in  time  of  peace  and 
unexampled  prosperity,  did  men  undertake  to  overthrow 
a  government  whose  burdens  were  so  light  that  its  re- 
strictions were  never  felt  or  thought  of — as  the  perfectly 
sound  man  never  thinks  of  the  beating  of  his  heart  or  play 
of  his  lungs?  Yet  this  is  the  madness  and  wickedness  of 
the  rebellion  whose  bloody  footprints  we  are  called  upon 
to  trace  to-day — a  rebellion  whose  wickedness  and  mad- 
ness are  only  excelled  by  its  folly.  Why,  think  of  it — an 
Administration  is  inaugurated  whose  term  of  office  is  for 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  49 

bare  four  years ;  it  can  command  a  majority  in  neither 
house  of  Congress  ;  it  can  pass  no  law,  make  no  important 
appointment  ;  yet,  to  unseat  that  Administration,  the  pil- 
lars of  the  Republic  are  to  be  grasped  and  the  temple 
shaken  to  its  foundation — party  friends  and  party  foes  to 
be  involved  alike  in  common  and  irretrievable  ruin. 

See  for  one  moment  how  the  very  suspicion  that  the 
Government  would  not  be  strong  enough  to  withstand 
the  attack  demoralized  the  public  mind,  and  how  close  a 
parallel  do  the  events  of  '61  draw  to  those  of  '76.  Again 
the  propriety  of  a  monarchy  and  protectorate  was  dis- 
cussed ;  again  States  were  to  be  broken  in  twain  ;  Southern 
Indiana  and  Illinois  were  to  be  detached ;  Western  Vir- 
ginia and  Eastern  Tennessee  were  to  go  off ;  again  there 
were  to  be  two  or  three  or  half  a  dozen  confederacies ;  New 
England  was  to  be  "  left  out  "  ;  New  York  was  to  become 
a  free  and  independent  city  ;  there  was  to  be  a  confederacy 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley  ;  there  was  to  be  a  Pacific  Re- 
public ; — it  was  as  if  the  sun  should  hesitate  and  waver  in 
his  attraction  and  the  bewildered  planets  should  lose  their 
orbits. 

How  did  the  first  guns  that  were  fired  from  Fort 
Sumter  awake  the  nation  to  a  sense  of  the  destiny  that 
was  slipping  from  its  hands,  and  scatter  into  thin  air  all 
these  chimeras  and  speculations?  That  was  an  awful 
moment  when  those  guns  were  fired — when  no  man  knew 
whether  their  reverberations  were  to  roll  over  the  nation's 
grave  or  arouse  its  spirit  to  a  deathless  life.  That  was  the 
crisis  in  our  history.  The  world  stood  mute  with  expec- 
tation. The  popular  pulse  ceased  to  beat — the  public 
heart  stood  still.  Humanity  and  all  generations  to  come 
awaited  the  result — then  it  was  to  be  known  whether  we 
had  a  Government  or  not.  The  President's  proclamation 
came.  It  was  greeted  with  shouts  of  derisive  laughter  by 
Jeff.  Davis  and  his  counsellors ;  but  its  words  fell  like 
sheets  of  flame  upon  loyal  spirits.      Hundreds  of  thou- 


50 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


sands  of  men  rushed  to  arms,  ready  to  die  in  defence  of 
the  country  and  its  flag  !     They 

"  Came  as  the  winds  come  when  forests  are  rended  ; 
Came  as  the  waves  come  when  navies  are  stranded  ! " 

From  that  hour  the  fate  of  the  Republic  was  safe.  The 
nation  that  numbers  so  many  devoted  sons  is  not  doomed. 
Whatever  are  to  be  the  events  of  the  war,  the  country  in 
its  integrity  is  to  be  preserved.  The  meteor  flag  is  not  to 
disappear  ;  its  starry  folds  are  to  gleam  bright  through  the 
conflict !  There  is  to  be  an  arm  still  strong  enough  to 
carry  it  first  among  the  great — highest  among  the  proud  ! 

I  am  not  insensible  to  the  disasters  of  war — to  the  ag- 
gravated horrors  of  civil  war.  Already  has  the  nation 
experienced  a  foretaste  of  its  bitterness.  Homes  are 
divided,  families  arrayed  against  each  other ;  the  curling 
locks  of  youth  and  gray  hairs  of  age  have  been  dabbled 
in  blood !  To-day  thousands  of  anxious  hearts  are  in 
bleeding  suspense  for  the  loved  ones  who  have  gone  to 
the  war.  At  this  very  moment  the  battle  may  be  raging. 
We  can  see  in  the  future  burning  villages,  devastated  fields, 
cities  destroyed,  commerce  broken  up  ;  we  can  hear  the 
mad  imprecation,  the  shriek  of  the  wounded,  the  dying 
groan !  The  heart-broken  sobs  of  the  mothers  will  be 
heard  in  all  the  land  ;  widows  will  go  in  mourning  through 
every  street ;  fathers  will  be  brought  down  in  sorrow  to 
the  grave,  and  sisters  and  loved  ones  will  watch  and  wait 
and  wait  and  watch  for  the  manly  forms  that  will  come  no 
more.  God,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  spare  us  the  agonies 
of  a  prolonged  strife  ! 

But,  sad  and  terrible  as  the  picture  is,  it  would  be  a 
sight  more  terrible  and  awful  to  humanity  to  see  a  nation, 
freighted  with  the  world's  best  hopes,  silently  go  to  pieces 
upon  the  dark  sea  of  time  when  there  was  no  storm,  its 
timbers  falling  apart  from  very  rottenness.  It  would  be  a 
spectacle  angels  might  weep  to  see — the  best  government 
ever  devised  overthrown  and  no  arm  raised  in  its  defence 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  5  I 

— the  black  flag  of  treason  raised  and  the  star-spangled 
banner  lowered  in  its  presence  to  trail  in  the  dust  before 
it !  That  would  indicate  that  patriotism  was  dead,  that 
heroic  virtue  was  extinct,  that  manly  courage  had  deserted 
the  race.  Better  the  land  should  become  a  howling  wilder- 
ness, an  arid  desert — better  anything  than  this  moral  death 
which  would  write  our  country  another  Sodom  in  history 
— a  great  Gomorrah  in  infamy.  But  the  grand  uprising 
we  have  witnessed,  this  overflow  of  patriotism  and  sublime 
forgetfulness  of  self,  makes  our  age  a  great  epoch  in  all 
history — links  it  with  '76.  It  proves  that  the  old  stock 
has  not  deteriorated.  There  is  enough  of  noble  blood  in 
this  people  to  feed  the  life  of  a  dozen  empires  for  a  thou- 
sand years.  There  are  those  who  say  that  a  war  cannot 
prevent  a  separation,  that,  therefore,  it  is  wicked  and  cruel 
on  the  part  of  the  Government,  tending  only  to  inflame 
and  confirm  a  spirit  of  hostility  and  mutual  hate.  But  in 
this  matter  the  Government  has  had  no  choice — it  has  been 
compelled  to  fight,  fight  for  its  very  existence,  or  basely 
abandon  every  object  for  which  it  was  established.  Besides, 
the  authors  of  this  objection  assume  the  very  question  in 
issue.  We  know  the  Union  cannot  now  be  preserved 
without  force  ;  we  are  going  to  try  the  experiment  whether 
it  can  be  preserved  with  force  or  not.  We  believe  the 
experiment  is  worth  the  trial.  We  are  not  without  some 
evidences  of  the  efficacy  of  the  remedy  to  be  employed. 
Where  would  Maryland  have  been  to-day  but  for  the  dis- 
play of  armed  force?  Where  would  Missouri  have  been, 
loyal  though  the  mass  of  her  people  are  ?  Kentucky,  God 
bless  her  gallant  heart,  seems  loyal  to  the  core,  but,  with 
her  faithless,  covenant-breaking  Governor,  she  is  none  the 
worse  for  being  grappled  with  hooks  of  steel  to  Indiana 
and  Ohio.  Do  you  not  believe  that  Virginia  might  have 
been  preserved  if  the  Government  had  not  trusted  her 
professions  of  neutrality  too  long?  The  appeal  to  arms 
was  not  made  by  the  Government ;  but  it  has  been  made. 
The  question  must  be  foueht  out — and  God  forefend  the 


52 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


right!  But  they  tell  us — You  can  never  subjugate  six 
millions  of  people.  Who  talks  of  subjugation?  No  sane 
man  and  loyal  citizen.  Every  part  of  the  confederacy  is 
to  be  protected  in  its  constitutional  enjoyments — absolute 
equality  is  everywhere  to  prevail.  No  State  is  to  be  de- 
prived of  any  prerogative,  and  no  citizen  of  his  rights,  but 
all  these  are  to  be  guaranteed  and  defended.  Subjugation 
is  the  variest  nightmare  dream — preservation  is  the  object 
of  the  gathering  hosts  of  freemen  ! 

How  base  would  it  be  to  desert  Andy  Johnson  and  Par- 
son Brownlow,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  loyal  men 
and  women,  whose  voices  are  drowned  by  the  clamors  of 
madness,  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  secession  mob.  Who- 
ever expects  a  peaceful  separation  of  this  country  forgets 
that  "  Union  is  as  much  the  body  of  the  nation  as  Liberty 
is  its  soul."  He  might  as  well  expect  to  tear  asunder  the 
living  body  of  a  man  without  one  shriek  of  agony,  one 
convulsion  of  nature.  No !  if  the  limbs  part  now,  they 
part  in  blood !  Why,  if  it  were  possible  to  accomplish 
peaceable  separation,  the  next  day  would  find  the  sections 
at  war  over  the  settlement.  Is  it  not  better  to  fight  in  the 
Union  and  for  it  than  out  of  it  and  over  its  dismembered 
fragments?  The  Union  may  cost  a  sharp  and  severe 
struggle,  but  disunion  would  be  followed  by  continual 
wars.  Why,  look  at  the  policy  of  Europe,  whose  states 
are  compelled  to  maintain  great  standing  armies  on  account 
of  their  mutual  hatreds  and  distrusts.  Do  you  wish  to  see 
that  policy  inaugurated  upon  the  American  continent — 
rival  States  separated  by  imaginary  lines,  ever  ready  to 
refer  their  difficulties  to  the  bloody  arbitrament  of  the 
sword,  instead  of  the  peaceful  solution  of  the  ballot  ?  The 
question  of  peace  or  war  is,  whether  this  generation  shall 
fight  a  good  fight  in  defence  of  noble  institutions  or  be- 
queath a  hundred  fruitless  wars  to  generations  to  come. 
Think  of  Italy  ! — with  what  tears  and  anguish  would  she 
regain  her  lost  union  ;  what  sufferings  has  she  endured  ; 
through  what  a  nig-ht  of  sorrow  has  she  travelled  since  that 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES,  53 

union  was  lost ;  how  freely  would  she  pour  out  her  best 
blood  to  cement  it  again.  History  still  weeps  over  the 
dismemberment  of  living  Poland.  It  is  pointed  at  as 
the  crime  of  nations.  The  stain  of  murder  is  upon  the 
garments  of  the  powers  that  shared  in  it.  But  that  was  a 
dismemberment  accomplished  by  invading  armies,  by  an 
overpowering  force,  by  strangers  and  foes  ;  but  what  name 
shall  history  invent  for  the  crime  when  she  tells  the  story 
of  a  nation  whose  living  body  was  broken  and  torn  in 
pieces  by  her  own  children  ?  Nations  have  died  from  de- 
crepitude of  age,  by  the  violence  of  foreign  wars,  by  the 
diseases  of  all-pervading  vice  ;  but,  that  a  country  in  the 
bloom  of  youth,  in  whom  was  centred  the  best  hopes  of 
humanity,  should  be  done  to  death  by  the  swords  of  her 
own  sons,  would  be  a  tragedy  more  awful  than  the  world 
has  ever  witnessed,  save  when  darkness  came  at  noonday, 
when  the  stones  were  rent,  and  nature  was  convulsed  over 
the  agony  of  a  dying  Saviour ! 

It  must  not  be.  This  cup  must  pass  from  us.  Cost 
what  it  may,  the  Union  must  be  preserved.  All  nations 
have  their  trials,  let  us  be  thankful  that  ours  has  come 
while  the  traditions  of  the  Revolution  are  fresh.  The 
ordeal  must  be  passed.  We  must  come  out  of  this  fur- 
nace without  the  smell  of  fire  upon  our  garments.  Again 
we  must  enter  upon  a  career  of  prosperity  and  peace,  and 
may  each  circling  sun  shine  here  upon  a  people  more 
happy,  more  powerful,  more  blessed — the  leader  of  the 
nations,  the  hope  of  the  world. 

SPEECH, 

DEBIT    AND    CREDIT    OF    THE    WAR. 
DELIVERED    AT   SACRAMENTO,  CAL.,  AUGUST  14,   l862. 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  When  De 
Tocqueville  was  in  the  United  States — it  was  about  the 
year  1835 — the  political  parties  of  this  country  were  divided 


54  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

over  the  questions  of  a  National  Bank  and  a  Protective 
Tariff.  These  subjects,  which  were  measures  of  fiscal 
policy  and  did  not  involve  any  of  the  distinctive  principles 
upon  which  our  Government  was  founded  and  on  which 
it  stood  in  bold  opposition  to  the  traditions  of  Europe 
and  the  world,  were  yet  discussed  with  a  bitterness  and 
rancor  that  often  destroyed  personal  friendship  and  de- 
spoiled the  amenities  of  social  life.  Indeed  it  was  only  a 
few  years  before  this  that  Calhoun  had  threatened  to 
break  up  the  Union  and  destroy  the  Government  on  a 
mere  question  of  the  rate  of  duties  upon  imports.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  discussion  he  evoked  the  dogma  of  State 
rights,  but  this  was  rather  a  weapon  with  which  he  fought, 
than  the  principle  for  which  he  contended  ;  for  when  the 
compromise  was  agreed  upon  by  which  the  tariff  was  to 
be  reduced  gradually  to  a  strictly  revenue  standard,  Cal- 
houn expressed  himself  satisfied,  and  always  claimed  that 
he  had  gained  a  moral  and  substantial  triumph  over  the 
Administration  of  General  Jackson,  though  certainly  the 
doctrine  that  the  States  individually  have  rights  superior 
to  the  nation  at  large  was  never  conceded. 

In  view  of  the  vehemence  of  discussion  and  intensity 
of  feeling  about  matters  that  seemed  to  him  so  ephemeral 
and  comparatively  trivial,  De  Tocqueville  said  that  he 
knew  not  whether  he  should  most  pity  the  violence  of 
party  spirit  over  questions  of  so  little  importance,  or  ad- 
mire the  greatness  of  a  country  whose  general  prosperity 
afforded  questions  of  no  greater  importance  for  parties  to 
quarrel  about. 

But  even  then,  in  that  day  of  unexampled  peace,  pros- 
perity, and  growing  power,  De  Tocqueville  dreaded  the 
future.  The  mountain  was  quiet ;  its  sides,  green,  bloom- 
ing, and  beautiful ;  its  summit  white  with  unsullied  snow, 
but  within  slumbered  volcanic  fires — fires  that  have 
burst  forth  in  our  day  in  lurid,  awful  flames.  We  are  far 
from  the  immediate  eruption,  though  its  thunders  shake 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  55 

our  shores.  We  do  not  see  with  our  eyes  the  fierce  lava 
tide  that  sweeps  burning  and  desolating  over  the  land, 
but  even  here,  when  we  read  the  names  of  our  friends 
fallen  in  battle,  the  fiery  cinders  fall  upon  living  hearts — 
alas  !  how  many  hearts  do  they  consume  to  ashes — while 
the  smoke  that  goes  up  from  its  crater  night  and  day  fills 
all  the  sky  with  blackness  and  shrouds  the  continent  with 
funereal  gloom.  On  that  black  war-cloud  the  world  to-day 
is  gazing  with  trembling  and  with  awe. 

It  seems  strange  that  in  the  economy  of  Providence 
wars  should  have  been  permitted — stranger  yet  that  they 
should  have  been  made  means  of  human  progress.  But 
He  who  ordained  that  physical  manhood  should  be  at- 
tained by  hard  contact  with  external  things — that  strength 
of  character  must  come  by  struggling  with  difficulties,  and 
that  moral  excellence  must  be  the  result  of  a  triumph 
over  vice,  also  ordained  that  nations  must  be  baptized  in 
the  fires  of  war  before  they  can  wear  the  crown  of  natural 
glory. 

Wars,  then,  have  their  hopes  and  their  gains,  their  debits 
and  their  credits.  The  losses  fall  heaviest  upon  the  im- 
mediate generations — the  greatest  gains  belong  to  genera- 
tions to  come — often  their  ever-increasing  heritage. 
Instance  the  American  Revolution.  Who  would  desire 
to  strike  those  bloody,  glorious  chapters  from  history 
now  ?  How  infinitely  do  the  gains  preponderate  over  the 
losses.  See  the  balance-sheet.  Debit  eight  years  of  war, 
cruel,  merciless,  with  suffering  and  hardships  unparalleled  ; 
debit  thousands  of  lives,  millions  of  property  ;  debit 
homes  destroyed,  families  severed  ;  debit  the  cruelties  of 
the  cowboys,  the  murder  of  innocents,  the  massacre  of 
Wyoming,  the  treachery  of  Arnold,  the  baseness  of  Lee  ; 
debit  a  land  steeped  to  the  lips  in  poverty.  Credit 
American  Independence  ;  credit  the  Federal  Union  ; 
credit  the  Constitution  ;  credit  a  material  advancement 
undreamed  of  before  ;  credit  the  inventions  in  mechanics, 


56  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

the  discoveries  in  science,  great  names  in  literature  ; 
credit  an  impulse  to  civil  liberty  throughout  the  world  ; 
credit  the  idea  that  while  kings  and  emperors  are  divid- 
ing and  partitioning  Europe,  this  continent  shall  belong 
to  the  people  and  they  shall  possess  it  forever  ;  credit 
Washington,  and  if  the  brow  of  the  Revolution  had  only 
served  to  reveal  that  name  in  the  brightness  of  its  glory 
— name  among  all  men,  and  races,  and  ages,  most  loved, 
most  honored,  most  revered, — its  blood  would  not  have 
been  shed  in  vain. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  attempt  to  make  a  balance- 
sheet  of  the  losses  and  gains  to  humanity  of  the  war  of 
the  Rebellion.  Neither  side  of  the  account  is  closed.  It 
may  be  that  the  historian  will  not  be  born  for  five  hun- 
dred years  who  will  be  able  to  approximate  the  result. 
But  bearing  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  greatest  evils  of 
war  are  immediate,  and  its  best  results  distant,  I  desire 
to  call  your  attention  briefly  to  a  part  of  the  losses,  and  a 
part  of  the  gains  that  are  already  apparent.  Among  the 
debits  look  for  one  moment  at  the  loss  of  property.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  estimated  the  national  debt  on 
the  first  of  July  at  six  hundred  million  dollars — a  sum  of 
startling  magnitude  at  first  glance.  Let  us  look  at  it  more 
closely,  and  compare  it  with  our  resources.  The  national 
debt  of  Great  Britain  is  four  thousand  million  dollars,  the 
greater  part  of  it  created  during  her  wars  with  Napoleon. 
But  notwithstanding  this  immense  debt,  England  has 
steadily  and  rapidly  increased  in  wealth  and  commercial 
greatness,  and  that  constant  growth  was  not  retarded  by 
the  fact  that  for  twenty  years  the  Bank  of  England  did 
not  pay  specie,  and  during  part  of  that  time  gold  was  at 
a  greater  premium  in  London  than  it  has  been  in  New 
York  since  this  war  began.  We  have  no  reason  to  antici- 
pate that  our  national  debt  will  much  exceed  one  quarter 
of  Great  Britain's,  and  though  our  present  actual  capital 
accumulations  are  less,  looking  to  the  future  our  resources 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  57 

are  incomparably  more.  By  the  estimates  of  the  last  census 
the  population  of  this  country  was  thirty  million  ;  the 
value  of  its  property  sixteen  thousand  million  dollars. 
But  the  child  is  now  living  who  will  see  this  country  a 
nation  of  a  hundred  million  people,  with  a  corresponding 
increase  in  the  value  of  property ;  and  the  national  debt, 
that  is  now  made  a  monster  to  fright  us  from  the  line  of 
duty,  will  be  absorbed  and  paid  off  with  far  greater  ease 
than  was  that  part  of  the  debt  of  the  Revolution  which 
was  acknowledged  and  paid.  Besides,  if  the  Union 
should  be  dissolved,  the  permanent  depreciation  in  prop- 
erty and  business  would  be  greater  than  any  national 
debt  we  can  incur,  and  the  increased  expenses  of  carrying 
on  two,  three,  or  half  a  dozen  governments,  with  the 
standing  armies  that  policy  would  require,  would  be  far 
more  than  all  the  interest  we  will  ever  be  called  upon  to 
pay.  So  that  looking  at  the  matter  purely  as  a  financial 
question,  and  solely  in  the  light  of  dollars  and  cents,  it  is 
and  always  has  been  a  wise  and  prudent  economy  to  fight 
this  war  to  a  successful  and  triumphant  issue.  The  na- 
tional debt  simply  represents  the  amount  which  the 
present  borrows  of  the  future. 

There  is  a  loss,  however,  that  falls  upon  this  generation 
— the  loss  which  is  created  by  diverting  the  energies  and 
labors  of  a  million  of  men  creating  value,  producing  wealth, 
into  consuming  and  destroying.  The  armies  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  the  Rebellion,  with  their  camp  followers  and 
transport  agents,  have  for  the  past  year  averaged  a  mil- 
lion of  men.  In  the  State  of  California,  by  the  regula- 
tions of  armies  there  are  about  a  hundred  thousand  men 
capable  of  bearing  arms.  It  would  thus  require  every 
able-bodied  man  in  ten  States  like  this  to  furnish  soldiers 
for  the  armies  of  this  war.  Imagine,  then,  that  all  the 
men  in  our  State  should  stop  all  labor  or  business  for  a 
year,  and  devote  the  energies  before  used  in  creating 
value,  into  destroying  it ;  add  together  the  amount  which 


58  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

they  should  have  created  and  the  amount  they  have  de- 
stroyed ;  multiply  that  sum  by  ten,  and  you  have  the 
actual  loss  in  property  to  the  nation  by  the  war.  And  you 
will  have  some  idea  of  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  this 
country  when  you  reflect  that  the  loyal  States  bear  their 
portion  of  this  burden  every  day,  without  shrinking  or 
staggering  for  a  moment. 

There  is  nothing  that  consumes,  wastes,  and  destroys 
like  an  army.  Look  at  the  desolate  fields  of  Virginia  since 
that  has  become  the  battle-ground.  If  we  could  take  a 
telescopic  bird's-eye  view  of  the  whole  country  to-day,  we 
would  see  all  the  channels  of  industry  and  business 
changed  by  the  presence  of  the  great  armies  in  Virginia. 
Everything  in  some  degree  made  tributary  to  them — the 
products  of  labor  from  all  over  the  country  sweeping  down 
in  great  currents  to  their  support.  But  the  property  losses 
of  the  war  are  not  felt  alone  in  our  country.  Millions  of 
operatives  in  England  and  Europe  feel  them.  There  is 
no  spot  of  inhabitable  land  where  commerce  can  pene- 
trate that  does  not  feel  this  war  in  the  increased  prices  of 
fabrics.  War  is  a  great  maelstrom  that  draws  into  its 
vortex  that  which  is  near,  and  whose  eddies  and  currents 
disturb  the  waters  of  the  farthest  sea. 

But  there  is  a  deeper,  tenderer,  sadder  loss — a  loss  that 
figures  cannot  represent,  or  the  imagination  conceive  ;  the 
heart  can  only  bleed  over  it — the  loss  of  precious,  noble 
lives.  Perhaps  not  less  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
lives  have  been  lost  in  the  war  since  the  first  gun  was  fired 
upon  Sumter — more  than  the  entire  male  adult  popula- 
tion of  this  State.  And  such  lives!  The  brave,  the 
daring,  the  manly,  the  self-sacrificing !  One  there  was 
whose  noble  form  was  in  our  midst,  it  seems,  but  yester- 
day,— gifted  with  power  to  touch  the  chords  of  every 
heart,  endowed  with  magic  to  open  the  fountains  of 
laughter  or  of  tears  ;  whose  words  could  sooth  the  malig- 
nity of  foes,  and  lift  the  minds  of  friends  to  regions  of 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  59 

serenest  thought ;  to  whom  eloquence  was  but  the  out- 
breathing  of  his  soul, — gone  now,  swept  down  in  the  fierce 
tide  of  battle  !  That  wondrous  brain,  at  one  moment 
the  home  of  strange  fancies,  the  next  insensate  clay  !  No 
more  shall  his  glorious  words  kindle  the  enthusiasm  of 
our  hearts — no  more  his  eagle  eye  flash  with  the  hidden 
fires  of  the  soul — "  He  sleeps  his  last  sleep,  he  has  fought 
his  last  battle  ;  no  sound  can  wake  him  to  glory  again." 
Nations  mourn  the  fall  of  the  gifted,  and  history  en- 
shrines their  names  in  her  annals ;  but  the  humble,  the 
lowly,  though  brave  and  good,  have  fallen  by  tens  of 
thousands,  not  alone  on  the  field  of  battle  and  of  glory, 
where  there  are  shoutings  of  the  captains,  the  thunder 
of  artillery,  and  all  the  pomp  and  pride  of  war,  but  in 
the  sickly  camp,  in  the  crowded  hospital,  in  the  noisome 
prison,  they  have  died — and  they  sleep  in  indiscrimi- 
nate trenches  and  in  nameless  graves,  where  not  even 
the  tears  of  love,  can  mark  their  resting-place.  Oh, 
there  is  mourning  in  all  the  land  !  There  are  fathers 
and  mothers  the  staff  of  whose  declining  years  is  broken 
— widows  who  sit  with  broken  hearts  beside  desolate 
firesides — and  loved  ones  who  will  watch  and  wait  and 
wait  and  watch  for  the  echoes  of  footsteps  that  will 
come  no  more.  Is  there,  oh,  is  there,  in  all  the  armory  of 
Infinite  wrath,  a  bolt  red  enough  with  Divine  vengeance 
to  blast  and  punish  the  crime  that  has  inaugurated 
scenes  like  these  in  a  land  so  peaceful  and  so  fair?  Is 
there — can  there  be  anything  that  will  compensate 
for  this  sacrifice  of  the  best  and  bravest  in  the  land  ? 
Not  now — but  future  generations  will  rise  up  and  call 
this  one  blessed,  because  it  gave  its  most  precious  blood 
to  preserve  a  Union  that  shall  lead  the  vanguard  of  the 
nations,  and  whose  hands  will  scatter  blessings  in  the 
pathway  of  humanity  for  ever  and  for  evermore.  The 
war  of  the  Revolution  was  fought  for  Independence — 
Union  was  its  incident.     This  is  fought  for  Union,  and 


60  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

must  cement  it  forever.  It  is  a  war  for  the  Union, 
and  shall  baptize  it  with  a  like  eternity.  It  is  one  of  the 
immediate  advantages  of  the  war  that  it  has  demonstrated 
the  fact  of  our  financial  independence.  We  were  told  at 
the  commencement  of  the  struggle  that  foreign  purses 
would  be  closed — that  we  had  nothing  to  expect  from  the 
Rothschilds,  the  Barings,  the  Hopes,  the  princely  bankers 
of  Europe,  and  it  was  thought  that  would  compel  us  to 
make  terms.  But  the  war  has  been  carried  on  with  home 
means,  home  credit — the  national  debt  will  be  paid  at 
home ;  and  notwithstanding  three  hundred  million  dol- 
lars of  exports  in  cotton  and  tobacco  have  been  cut  off, 
we  have  all  the  time  been  transferring  American  stocks  and 
securities  from  London  to  New  York,  and  to-day  we  owe 
less  of  a  foreign  debt  than  we  did  when  the  rebellion  com- 
menced. The  world  soon  will  realize  that  America  is  far 
more  necessary  to  the  world's  commerce  than  that  com- 
merce is  to  her.  Another  immediate  credit  to  the  account 
of  the  war,  is  the  certainty  of  the  construction  of  the 
Pacific  Railroad.  Congress  had  for  years  been  endeavor- 
ing to  settle  upon  some  plan  that  would  appease  unreason- 
able prejudices  and  harmonize  conflicting  opinions,  and 
the  end  seemed  each  year  more  and  more  remote.  Sud- 
denly the  war  demonstrated  that  the  construction  of  the 
road  was  an  absolute  military  necessity — that  it  was  a 
measure  of  great  national  policy — and  the  work  is  begun. 
The  Republic  reaches  out  its  great  arm  that  it  may  clasp 
the  Pacific  shores  close  to  its  heart.  There  may  they 
grow  forever  !  It  is  strange  that  this  work  of  peace,  of 
beneficence,  of  industry  and  commerce  should  be  inaugu- 
rated amid  the  havoc  and  desolations  of  war.  Such  are 
the  paradoxes  of  human  affairs. 

The  next  national  benefit  to  be  placed  to  the  credit  of 
the  war,  is  the  destruction  of  the  naval  superiority  of 
France  and  the  maritime  supremacy  of  Great  Britain. 
England  commenced  to  build  her  navy  when  William  the 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  6 1 

Conqueror  established  the  Cinque  Ports  more  than  eight 
hundred  years  ago ;  and  ever  since  she  has  devoted  to 
her  navy  her  wealth,  her  labor,  and  her  skill.  It  has  been 
her  glory  and  her  pride.  It  was  the  right  arm  of  her 
power.  It  made  her  name  the  terror  of  the  nations,  and 
enthroned  her  as  an  arbiter  of  international  law.  Five 
years  ago  she  had  nine  hundred  vessels  in  commis- 
sion and  building.  This  was  the  stupendous  monument 
of  her  energy.  With  the  first  gun  of  the  Monitor, 
the  fabric  fell.  That  was  a  memorable  engagement  at 
Hampton  Roads — to  be  memorable  in  all  history — when 
the  iron-clad  Merrimac  came  down  to  attack  our  fleet — 
when  the  Minnesota  grounded — when  the  Congress  struck 
— for  "  Joe  was  dead  " — when  the  Cumberland  sank — sank 
firing  broadsides  as  the  waves  broke  over  her  deck — sank 
with  her  flag  at  the  masthead  and  the  wounded  tars 
cheering  it  as  they  went  down  in  the  dark  waters  forever. 
It  was  a  fit  ending  to  the  history  of  Paul  Jones,  of  Bain- 
bridge  and  Hull,  Decatur,  Lawrence,  and  Perry,  of 
Stewart  and  Porter,  and  the  thousand  gallant  tars  that 
have  made  the  exploits  of  our  navy  a  part  of  the  glory  of 
the  Republic.  She  did  not  sink  alone.  The  Imperial 
Navy  of  France,  the  Royal  Navy  of  Great  Britain,  sank 
with  her.  When  that  strange-looking  craft,  that  insig- 
nificant object,  came  up,  seeming  to  show  nothing  above 
the  water  but  a  half-finished  smoke-stack,  looking  "  like  a 
cheese  box  on  a  plank," — when  this  diminutive  thing  that 
the  Merrimac  might  have  swallowed,  dared  to  attack  the 
iron  monster,  then  a  new  era  of  naval  warfare  commenced. 
No  longer  wooden  walls,  but  iron  sides — no  longer  hearts 
of  oak,  but  hearts  of  steel.  Britannia  rules  the  waves  no 
more.     Columbia  is  the  Gem  of  the  Ocean. 

It  is  to  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  war  that  it  has  re- 
buked and  humiliated  a  spirit  of  aristocracy  that  has  grown 
up  in  our  country,  that  arrogated  to  itself  superior  rights, 
privileges,  and  powers,  and  whose  boldly  avowed  policy  it 


62  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

was  to  rule  or  ruin  the  Government.  How  often,  in  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  has  this  power  said  to  the  statesmen 
of  the  land,  "  Fall  down  and  worship  me  or  I  '11  grind  you 
to  powder,"  and  it  ground  them  to  powder  when  they  did  ! 
How  continually  has  it  stood  up  in  the  councils  of  the  na- 
tion and  said,  "  Give  me  this,  give  me  that,  give  all  that  I 
ask,  or  I  '11  scatter  your  Government  to  the  winds."  Why, 
even  when  California  applied  for  admission  as  a  State,  its 
Representatives  said  :  "  If  California  comes  in,  it  will  sub- 
vert the  institutions  of  the  country ;  they  are  ours,  and  we 
will  destroy  them,  and  drive  a  burning  plowshare  over  the 
Union."  When  that  statesman  and  sainted  patriot,  Doug- 
las, said  that  the  people's  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty 
should  not  bow  to  their  behests  or  pander  to  their  wishes, 
they  resolved  to  stone  him  to  political  death.  The  spirit 
that  brooked  no  rivals,  acknowledged  no  equals,  will  lord 
it  no  longer.  Let  me  be  clearly  understood.  I  believe 
that  the  protection  of  slavery  was  as  much  a  false  pretext 
for  this  rebellion  as  the  doctrine  of  State  rights  was  a  mere 
pretence  for  the  attempt  at  nullification  in  1832.  The  real 
object  was  to  retain  political  power.  They  said  in  their 
hearts  they  would  not  have  a  man  of  the  people  to  rule 
over  them.  This  war  was  inaugurated  for  the  protection 
of  slavery  !  Why,  in  one  year  it  has  impaired  and  weakened 
that  institution  more,  infinitely  more,  than  all  the  agitators 
who  have  lived  since  the  foundation  of  the  Government. 
What  will  be  the  status  of  slavery  after  the  war,  depends 
entirely  upon  the  rebellion  itself.  If  it  shall  ground  its 
arms  when  its  main  army  is  defeated  in  a  pitched  battle, 
every  State  may  preserve  her  domestic  institutions  pre- 
cisely as  she  pleases.  But  if  the  war  is  to  be  protracted 
into  an  indefinite  struggle,  until  the  heart  of  the  Southern 
States  shall  become  the  battle-ground — if  guerrilla  raids, 
partisan  depredations,  and  reprisals  are  to  be  features  of 
the  conflict — if,  instead  of  being  concentrated  into  one 
;burning  focus,  where  the  result  will  be  quick  and  decisive, 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  63 

it  is  to  be  scattered  and  disseminated  through  the  South, 
these  things  will  unquestionably  so  demoralize  the  slaves 
themselves,  render  their  position  so  insecure  and  the 
products  of  their  labor  so  uncertain,  that  this  species  of 
property  will  become  valueless  and  not  worth  preserving. 
A  long  war  of  that  character,  the  complexion  to  which  the 
rebel  leaders  say  it  will  come  at  last,  would  ultimately 
destroy  the  institution  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  by 
the  inexorable  "logic  of  events,"  and  Presidents  and 
Cabinets,  Congress  and  commanders,  would  be  powerless 
to  control  or  prevent  it.  If  the  rebellion  should  succeed 
in  its  darling  dream  of  foreign  intervention,  the  first  blow 
struck  would  be  the  doom  of  slavery.  Whether,  then, 
that  institution  is  to  be  retained  in  the  States  that  desire 
it,  to  be  destroyed  by  a  slow,  consuming  war,  or  to  be 
annihilated  by  the  concussion  of  this  Government  with  a 
foreign  foe — by  standing  between  giant  gladiators  as  they 
cross  swords  upon  the  arena  of  the  world, — are  events  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  the  rebellion  itself,  and  upon  its  head 
be  the  responsibility  of  the  issue. 

But  whatever  that  issue  may  be,  whatever  is  to  become 
of  the  institution  itself,  the  decree  has  gone  forth  that 
destroys,  and  forever,  that  claim  to  be  a  "  master-race  " — 
that  assumption  of  superior  blood,  of  aristocratic  privilege 
and  lordly  power  which  was  its  spurious  outgrowth,  and 
which  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  Democratic  institutions 
and  an  insult  to  the  dignity  of  human  nature.  Not  alone, 
not  chiefly  was  that  spirit  manifested  in  the  halls  of  na- 
tional legislation.  If  there  it  attempted  to  play  the  politi- 
cal tyrant,  at  home  it  was  a  social  despot,  trampling  the 
laboring  white  man  into  the  mire  and  the  clay  beneath  its 
feet.  Whoever  has  been  in  the  land  of  cotton  lords  has 
stood  in  the  presence  of  an  aristocracy  as  proud,  imperious, 
and  exclusive  as  was  ever  that  of  Patrician  Rome  or  the 
Grandees  of  Old  Spain.  There  to  be  a  "  poor  white  "  is 
to  be  of  pariah  caste,  with  scarcely  a  hope  ever  to  rise 


64  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

above  it.  Poor  whites  will  learn  now,  learn  in  the  terrible 
lessons  of  battle-fields,  that  if  they  are  the  bones  and 
muscles,  the  thews  and  sinews  of  society,  they  are  also  a 
part  of  its  life-blood,  it  head,  and  its  heart.  How  long  has 
it  been  since  a  Senator  of  South  Carolina,  bold,  eloquent, 
and  outspoken,  true  to  the  instinct  of  his  nature  and  the 
feelings  of  his  class,  in  the  United  States  Senate  denounced 
Northern  society  as  a  delusion  and  a  sham,  because  it 
assumed  to  give  social  position  and  political  influence  to 
laboring  men — "to  close-fisted  farmers  and  greasy  me- 
chanics,"— whereas,  in  the  true  theory  of  society  by  that 
oracle,  the  laboring  class  constituted  mere  mudsills  upon 
which  to  build. 

I  thank  Heaven  there  was  in  the  Senate,  and  that  Cali- 
fornia sent  him  there,  one  man  who  did  not  forget  that  he 
was  a  man  before  he  was  a  Senator — who  could,  in  indig- 
nant and  scathing  terms,  expose  and  rebuke  the  falsehood 
of  that  doctrine — who  could  vindicate  the  dignity  of  labor, 
the  manliness  of  simple  manhood,  and  who  had  the  spirit 
to  say  that  his  own  father,  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  was 
one  of  the  laborers  who  cut  the  columns  that  supported 
the  marble  roof  of  the  Senate  chamber,  and  that  he,  stand- 
ing there  the  peer  of  the  highest,  was  proud  to  be  the  son 
of  a  poor  stone-cutter.  He,  too,  has  left  us — peace  to  his 
memory — lightly  lie  the  earth  upon  his  breast.  Child  of 
the  people,  he  was  "  a  born  leader,"  and  every  inch  a  king ! 
And  lastly,  I  place  to  the  credit  of  this  war  an  awakening 
of  patriotism — the  arousing  of  this  people  to  a  great  idea 
of  the  claims  of  the  country.  We  had  come  to  be  con- 
sidered a  nation  of  Mammon  worshippers,  of  traffickers  and 
hucksters,  physically  degenerate,  and  morally  measured  by 
the  Almighty  dollar.  Perhaps  there  was  something  of  truth 
in  the  estimate.  Our  material  prosperity  had  been  so  great 
that  we  became  absorbed  in  its  pursuit,  forgetful  of  great 
ideas  and  noblest  impulses.  We  too  "  were  a  nation  of 
shopkeepers."     The  clarion  of  danger  sounded,  and  a  na- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  65 

tion  of  heroes  sprang  to  its  feet.  The  uprising  of  a  great 
people  in  a  good  cause  is  an  event  that  ennobles  humanity. 
The  life-and-death  struggle  of  a  free  people  to  preserve 
their  country  is  an  event  angels  might  weep  and  yet  exult 
to  see.  Where  in  all  history  do  you  find  a  heroism  sur- 
passing that  of  Springfield,  of  Pea  Ridge,  of  Donelson,  of 
Shiloh,  of  Fair  Oaks,  and  the  six  days'  fighting  before 
Richmond.  That  heroism  defying  wounds  and  death, 
pouring  out  its  life-blood  freely — freely  as  I  give  these 
words  unto  the  open  air, — was  the  inspiration  of  country. 
Two  ideas  there  are  which,  above  all  others,  elevate  and 
dignify  a  race — the  idea  of  God  and  of  country.  How 
imperishable  is  the  idea  of  country !  How  does  it  live 
within  and  ennoble  the  heart  in  spite  of  persecutions  and 
trials,  and  difficulties  and  dangers.  After  two  thousand 
years  of  wandering,  it  makes  the  Jew  a  sharer  in  the  glory 
of  the  prophets,  the  lawgivers,  the  warriors,  and  poets, 
who  lived  in  the  morning  of  time.  How  does  it  toughen 
every  fibre  of  an  Englishman's  frame,  and  imbue  the  spirit 
of  the  Frenchman  with  Napoleonic  enthusiasm.  How 
does  the  German  carry  with  him  even  the  "  old  house 
furniture  "  of  the  Rhine,  surround  himself  with  the  sweet 
and  tender  associations  of  "  Fatherland,"  and  wheresoever 
he  may  be,  the  great  names  of  German  history  shine  like 
stars  in  the  heaven  above  him.  And  the  Irishman,  though 
the  political  existence  of  his  country  is  merged  in  a  king- 
dom whose  rule  he  may  abhor,  yet  still  do  the  chords  of 
his  heart  vibrate  responsive  to  the  tones  of  the  harp  of 
Erin,  and  the  lowly  shamrock  is  dearer  to  his  soul  than 
the  fame-crowning  laurel,  the  love-breathing  myrtle,  or 
storm-daring  pine.  What  is  our  country?  Not  alone  the 
land  and  the  sea,  the  lakes  and  rivers,  and  valleys  and 
mountains — not  alone  the  people,  their  customs  and  laws 
— not  alone  the  memories  of  the  past,  the  hopes  of  the 
future  ;  it  is  something  more  than  all  these  combined.  It 
is  a  divine  abstraction.  You  cannot  tell  what  it  is — but  let 


66  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

its  flag  rustle  above  your  head,  you  feel  its  living  presence 
in  your  hearts.  They  tell  us  that  our  country  must  die ; 
that  the  sun  and  the  stars  will  look  down  upon  the  great 
Republic  no  more ;  that  already  the  black  eagles  of  des- 
potism are  gathering  in  our  political  sky.  That  even  now, 
kings  and  emperors  are  casting  lots  for  the  garments  of 
our  national  glory.  It  shall  not  be.  Not  yet,  not  yet 
shall  the  nations  lay  the  bleeding  corpse  of  our  country  in 
the  tomb.  If  they  could,  angels  could  roll  the  stone  from 
the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre.  It  would  burst  the  casements 
of  the  grave  and  come  forth  a  living  presence,  "  redeemed, 
regenerated,  disenthralled."  Not  yet,  not  yet  shall  the 
Republic  die.  The  heavens  are  not  darkened,  the  stones 
are  not  rent !  It  shall  live — it  shall  live  the  incarnation 
of  freedom,  it  shall  live  the  embodiment  of  the  power  and 
majesty  of  the  people.  Baptized  anew,  it  shall  stand  a 
thousand  years  to  come,  the  Colossus  of  the  nations — its 
feet  upon  the  continents,  its  sceptre  over  the  seas,  its 
forehead  among  the  stars  ! 

ORATION 

AT    COMMENCEMENT    OF    THE    COLLEGE    OF    CALIFORNIA. 
DELIVERED   AT   OAKLAND,    CAL.,    JUNE   I,    1 864. 

We  are  assembled  as  fellow-citizens  of  the  republic  of 
letters — of  the  commonwealth  of  mind — of  that  realm  of 
thought  where  revolutions  leave  no  track  of  desolation, 
battles  no  ensanguined  fields,  and  where  the  bays  that  crown 
the  victors  are  not  wet  with  tears  or  stained  with  blood. 

The  natural  surroundings  are  beautiful  and  appropriate. 
These  are  the  groves  of  the  Academy  ;  yonder  Olympus 
lifts  its  summit  to  the  clouds ;  here  the  sea  that  laves  the 
Hesperian  gardens  rolls  its  peaceful  waters  to  our  feet. 

The  occasion  is  auspicious.  One  of  the  earliest  institu- 
tions of  learning  in  our  State,  having  passed  the  trials  and 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  6y 

difficulties  of  organization,  having  attained  a  position  of 
permanent  and  wide-extended  usefulness,  invites  us  to 
join  in  the  celebration  of  her  annual  intellectual  fete.  Let 
the  day  be  marked  with  white  in  our  literary  calendars. 
All  honor  to  the  College  of  California.  How  many  thou- 
sands of  incorporations  have  been  formed  here  to  develop 
the  material  resources  of  our  coast,  to  enrich  the  fortunate 
holders  of  their  stocks.  How  have  they  strewn  the  shores 
of  our  history  with  wrecked  hopes  and  expectations.  But 
this  one,  formed  to  develop  the  immaterial — the  imperish- 
able wealth  of  the  soul — has  kept  her  eye  fixed  upon  her 
star,  her  course  true  to  her  mission,  her  garments  free 
from  taint.  To-day  she  sends  into  the  world  her  first 
disciples,  duly  accredited  and  bearing  her  commission,  to 
take  their  places  in  the  warfare  of  life.  Advance-guard  of 
the  California  division  of  learning,  pioneer-corps  of  the 
battalions  of  hero-scholars  that  shall  follow  them  from 
these  gates,  may  they  fight  a  good  fight — loyal  to  country, 
to  freedom,  to  truth — and  every  year  may  each  of  them 
bring  back  from  the  contest  some  chaplet  of  victory,  well 
won  and  worthily  worn,  to  lay  at  the  feet  of  his  Alma 
Mater,  knowing  that  she  will  keep  them  all  green,  fresh, 
fragrant,  and  fadeless  in  her  love  ;  and  when  he  is  gone, 
when  the  work  given  him  on  earth  has  been  done,  place 
them,  immortelles  of  fame,  upon  his  grave.  May  the  lives 
of  her  children  reflect  glory  upon  her,  and  when  they  are 
dead  may  she  still  live,  the  heir  of  their  honors  and 
guardian  of  their  names. 

The  scholar  finds  the  circuit  of  human  knowledge  and 
inquiry  continually  growing  wider  and  wider.  Every  day 
adds  to  the  accumulated  facts  of  experience  and  observa- 
tion. Every  year  offers  new  theories  and  speculations  for 
investigation  and  study.  Every  generation  presents  new 
forms  of  thought,  new  systems  of  science,  new  dreams  of 
philosophy,  new  implements  and  applications  of  art,  new 
phases  in  the  life  of  humanity. 


68  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

In  an  age  not  distant  in  history  it  was  the  province  of 
high  institutions  of  learning  to  indoctrinate  their  pupils 
with  the  teachings  of  Aristotle,  swear  them  to  allegiance 
to  him,  and  impart  to  them  the  fruitless  art  of  scholastic 
discussion ;  now,  it  is  their  duty  to  dedicate  them  to  the 
truth  and  lead  them  to  the  threshold  of  endless  study,  in- 
vestigation, and  research.  Less  than  three  hundred  years 
ago  Lord  Bacon  projected  a  map  of  learning  which  should 
display  all  the  possessions  of  the  human  understanding.  It 
was  vast  and  varied.  But  this  great  "  Chancellor  of  letters 
and  High  Priest  of  Philosophy,"  rejecting  the  theory  of 
Copernicus  as  absurd,  held  that  the  earth  was  the  central 
figure  of  the  universe.  What  magnificent  provinces  have 
been  conquered  to  the  domains  of  learning  since  then. 
The  beautiful  laws  of  Kepler,  the  splendid  generalizations 
of  Newton,  the  telescope  of  Galileo,  have  subjected  the 
whole  starry  firmament  to  the  dominion  of  the  mind. 
While  the  telescope  has  given  to  our  vision  an  almost  in- 
finite sweep  out  among  innumerable  worlds,  the  microscope 
has  revealed  worlds  of  beauty,  mystery,  and  life  in  the 
trembling  leaf,  the  drop  of  water,  and  globule  of  blood. 
Chemistry  has  analyzed  matter,  discovered  the  elements, 
and  furnished  the  rules  of  their  combinations.  Those 
subtle,  impalpable  agents — light,  heat,  electricity,  and 
magnetism,  the  nervous  fluids  of  nature — have  yielded 
their  laws  to  investigation.  Botany  has  classified  plants, 
and  comparative  anatomy  animal  forms  ;  physiology  has 
penetrated  almost  to  the  sources  of  life,  and  geology  has 
sought  and  read  the  records  of  creation  in  the  inscriptions 
carved  on  the  primeval  pillars  of  the  earth.  Art  has  mul- 
tiplied its  implements  myriad-fold.  Time  has  given  to 
history  great  lives,  heroic  actions,  startling  revolutions, 
new  and  imperial  forms  of  political  organization.  Bacon's 
map  of  learning  wells  from  the  outlines  of  an  insular 
kingdom  to  the  full-orbed  dimensions  of  a  world. 

Once  a  chronology  of  six  thousand  years  seemed  sufri- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  69 

cient  for  all  the  marvels  of  time  and  the  wonders  of 
creation  ;  now  the  astronomer  measures  the  epochs  of  the 
past  by  the  oscillations  of  the  stars,  the  pendulums  of 
eternity  that  require  millions  of  years  to  sweep  through 
a  single  arc.  Once  the  universe  was  only  the  earth,  sur- 
mounted by  a  crystalline  dome  fretted  with  golden  fires 
to  light  man's  passage  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  ;  now 
it  is  the  infinite  home  of  Divine  Power. 

It  would  appear  that  this  vast  enlargement  of  the 
realms  of  learning  would  bring  this  an  ever-increasing  dif- 
ficulty to  the  individual  scholar — the  whole  field  being 
too  extended  for  his  comprehension  ;  if  he  attempt  to 
compass  it  all  he  will  become  superficial,  inexact ;  his 
thoughts  will  lack  precision,  his  ideas  force,  his  beliefs 
conviction  ;  if  he  confine  himself  to  a  single  department, 
his  views  will  become  narrow,  his  information  will  want 
that  fulness,  roundness,  and  completeness,  and  his  charac- 
ter that  equipoise,  which  are  among  the  crowning  glories 
of  intellect.  This  difficulty,  arising  from  the  limitation 
of  human  faculties,  must  always  exist ;  but  it  diminishes 
instead  of  increasing  with  every  new  discovery  of  truth 
and  accession  of  knowledge.  We  see  but  indistinctly  the 
field  or  orchard  by  starlight,  but  the  whole  landscape  be- 
comes clear  at  noonday.  Nature,  half-interpreted,  speaks 
a  language  harsh  to  the  ear  and  hard  to  the  understand- 
ing ;  but  fully  known,  the  keynote  struck,  her  voice 
becomes  easy  and  musical — full  of  sweetness  and  in- 
struction. 

The  progress  of  science  is  always  from  the  complex 
towards  the  simple — from  the  vast  variety  of  facts  to  the 
simplicity  and  harmony  of  law,  from  the  multitude  of 
details  to  the  unity  of  plan. 

An  erroneous  theory  will  constantly  invent  new  hypoth- 
eses to  account  for  additional  facts,  but  in  true  science 
new  phenomena  range  themselves  under  established 
principles,  and  confirm  and  illustrate  their  truth.     How 


70  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

wonderfully  ingenious,  how  difficult  of  comprehension, 
was  the  system  of  cycles  and  epicycles  devised  by  Hip- 
parchus  to  trace  and  account  for  the  orbits  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  assuming  the  earth  to  be  the  centre  of  motion. 
For  every  perturbation  a  new  circle  must  be  drawn 
until  the  whole  heavens  were  covered  with  a  tangled  net- 
work of  lines.  Compared  to  this  how  grandly  simple  are 
the  truths  of  astonomy  as  she  traces  the  orbits  of  the 
planets  with  mathematical  accuracy,  demonstrates  the 
correlation  between  their  distances  from  the  sun  and 
the  times  of  their  revolution,  and  teaches  that  their  places, 
forms,  and  motions  are  all  in  obedience  to  that  universal 
law  that  moulds  the  dew-drop  to  a  sphere  and  governs 
the  falling  of  an  apple.  And  so  absolute  are  her  deduc- 
tions that  Le  Verrier,  watching  the  perturbations  of 
Uranus,  feels  a  disturbing  influence  a  thousand  million 
miles  beyond,  levels  his  telescope  at  the  far  depths  of 
space,  and  from  the  unknown  void  a  new  planet  sweeps 
across  the  disc  of  his  glass. 

What  an  intricate,  enchanting  maze  of  difficulty  and 
doubt — bewildering  and  infatuating  the  soul — was  Al- 
chemy, with  its  mysterious  philters,  its  spells,  its  charms, 
and  incantations  ;  its  dealings  with  the  invisible  ;  its  mad- 
dening search  for  the  philosopher's  stone  and  the  elixir  of 
life  ;  its  dreams  of  boundless  wealth  and  visions  of  immor- 
tal youth  !  How  different  Chemistry,  that  treads  no  de- 
vious paths,  deals  with  substances  not  shadows,  attempts 
not  the  impossible,  yet  places  the  world  in  its  crucible  to 
find  the  elemental  forms,  and  shows  that  each  of  the 
elements  preserves  its  individual  character  in  every  dis- 
guise— a  common  multiple  every  combination. 

How  many  mysterious  processes  of  nature  were  ex- 
plained by  the  discovery  of  oxygen.  How  many  beauti- 
ful phenomena  were  accounted  for  by  the  proper  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  light.  Geology  instructs  us  that 
all  the  changes  of  the  earth  in  its  history  since  chaos  have 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  J\ 

been  accomplished  by  agencies  with  whose  operation  we 
are  hourly  familiar.  Comparative  anatomy  reduces  the 
infinite  variety  of  animal  forms,  living  and  fossil,  to  four 
types.  Botany  assigns  the  species  of  the  big  trees  of 
Calaveras,  and  the  extinct  fern  that  left  its  print  on  a 
coal  field  before  the  creation  of  man. 

Then,  too,  the  sciences  interblend.  They  are  all  in- 
vestigating modifications  of  the  same  laws,  and  they  con- 
firm and  illustrate  each  other.  The  distance  of  a  planet 
determines  the  velocity  of  light,  then  light  measures  the 
distances  of  the  fixed  stars  and  becomes  the  astronomer's 
surveying-chain.  The  propagation  of  sounds  suggests  the 
existence  of  an  interstellar  medium — an  all-pervading  ether 
for  the  transmission  of  light  and  heat.  Light,  heat,  elec- 
tricity, and  magnetism  are  resolved  into  forces.  They  are 
continual  agents  in  astronomical  phenomena,  in  chemical 
operations,  in  geological  changes,  in  vegetable  growth,  and 
animal  life.  In  all  scientific  investigations  the  philosopher 
is  constantly  using  mathematical  formulas  and  methods, 
and  the  highest  law  to  which  he  can  attain  is  certain  to 
involve  a  mathematical  statement,  as  if  the  whole  creation 
were  planned  on  the  principles  of  mathematics.  And  if 
light,  heat,  electricity,  and  magnetism  are  the  sensitive, 
nervous  fluids  of  the  body  of  nature,  the  truths  of  mathe- 
matics are  the  very  thoughts  of  God  that  animate  the 
universal  frame. 

Thus  cosmical  science  grows  continually  towards  unity. 
We  hear  now  but  snatches  and  airs  of  Nature's  music — 
its  finest  passages  are  lost,  and  recurring  discords  jar  upon 
the  soul ;  but  as  we  penetrate  more  and  more  deeply  into 
the  regions  of  mystery  and  wonder,  from  every  side — 
above,  beneath,  around — note  after  note,  bar  after  bar, 
part  after  pare,  will  break  upon  the  ear,  until  the  whole 
will  blend  in  grand  orchestral  harmony,  and  the  spirit 
will  add  its  hymn  of  devotion  to  creation's  eternal  accom- 
paniment in  praise  of  the  Everlasting. 


72  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

As  the  advancement  of  learning  in  natural  science  leads 
to  the  recognition  of  the  universality  and  harmony  of 
law,  so  every  improvement  in  art  is  a  step  towards  sim- 
plicity in  the  use  of  means.  Mechanical  art  knows  but  one 
principle — force  ;  to  overcome  that  when  it  is  a  resistance ; 
to  accumulate,  economize,  concentrate,  and  expend  it  as 
power,  is  the  only  study  of  invention. 

In  the  mutations  of  human  affairs  philosophical  histo- 
rians concede  that  there  is,  and  endeavor  to  discover  it,  a 
law  of  human  progress  that  determines  the  pathway  the 
races  must  follow,  establishes  the  lines  of  civilization,  the 
boundaries  of  thought,  the  form  and  duration  of  institu- 
tions, the  periods  and  consequences  of  revolutions ;  and 
statisticians  inform  us  there  is  a  law  even  in  accidents — 
they  compute  the  average  duration  of  human  life,  predict 
the  total  destructiveness  of  fires  in  a  given  time,  and  fore- 
tell the  number  of  suicides,  the  number  and  character 
of  the  crimes  that  will  darken  the  history  of  the  coming 
year. 

This  constant  progress  of  truth  to  simplicity  of  state- 
ment, and  of  knowledge  to  the  perception  of  the  univer- 
sality of  law,  is  not  without  attending  dangers.  There  is 
danger  of  yielding  to  the  passive  faith  of  fatalism — of 
recognizing  the  great  current  of  destiny  but  forgetting 
our  own  transcendent  individuality.  There  is  danger  of 
rationalism — that  the  spirit  will  be  enchained  when  reason 
is  enthroned.  There  is  danger  that  men  will  forget  there 
is  a  God  as  well  as  law  in  nature  and  history  ;  once  they 
realized  His  immediate  will  in  every  vicissitude  of  nature 
and  life.  His  hand  shifted  the  changing  scenes  of  the 
seasons.  He  drew  the  curtains  of  the  night,  brought  forth 
Arcturus  with  His  sons,  and  Mazaroth  in  his  season.  His 
arm  grasped  the  world's  deep  pillars  in  the  terrible  earth- 
quake, His  wrath  burst  in  fire  in  the  dread  volcano  ;  they 
saw  the  flashing  of  His  eye  in  the  lightning's  glare,  and 
heard  His  awful  voice  in  the  deep-toned  thunder.     Then, 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  73 

their  conceptions  degraded  His  nature  into  the  material 
and  sensuous ;  now,  there  is  a  tendency  to  refine  it  to  the 
abstract,  so  that  the  realizing  sense  of  His  presence  will 
be  lost — the  true  and  burning  Shekinah  no  more  revealed. 

These  are  evils  that  threaten  our  spiritual  nature,  to  be 
averted  only  by  exalting  the  spirit,  keeping  the  reason 
subordinate  to  that  within  us  which  most  truly  reflects 
the  image  of  Him  after  whose  likeness  man  was  formed. 
But  the  intellect  itself  is  not  free  from  perils.  There  is 
danger  that  learning  will  become  formal ;  that  the  living 
force  of  truth  will  be  lost  in  the  dead  formula  of  its  state- 
ments ;  that  the  mind  will  comprehend  its  terms  without 
assimilating  its  meaning  and  appropriating  its  strength. 

When  a  principle  or  theory  is  the  subject  of  controversy, 
fighting  its  way  into  the  established  order  of  things,  it  is 
a  life-giving  power ;  but  once  fully  recognized  and  con- 
ceded, it  is  apt  to  sink  "  from  a  truth  to  a  truism  "  and 
be  laid  away  as  so  much  dead  intellectual  capital. 
Words  which  ought  to  be  the  living  incarnation  of  ideas 
may  become  their  tomb.  There  is  a  grand  word — Liberty 
— whose  priceless  value  was  bought  for  us  with  the  best 
blood  of  a  generation.  Its  sound  continued  musical  as 
ever — even  that  could  thrill  the  heart  with  sacred 
memories ;  but  it  grew  to  mean  servility  to  a  tyrannous 
power,  a  sanction  for  slavery,  and  it  required  the  fiery 
touch  of  War  to  release  its  imprisoned,  resplendent  spirit. 

How  apt  are  we  to  repeat  the  noblest  litanies,  for  whose 
truths  martyrs  have  died,  each  of  whose  words  came  coined 
and  stamped  from  the  furnace  heat  of  ages  of  conflict,  as  a 
mere  fashion  or  ceremony.  How  easy  it  is  to  receive  the 
bare  statements  of  science  without  climbing  its  heights  to 
survey  the  wideness  of  its  fields.  Thus  patriotism  may 
become  cant,  religion  a  form,  and  learning  a  pedantry  of 
terms. 

Increase  of  knowledge  is  not  necessarily  increase  of 
wisdom.     Improved  implements  may  result  in  a  deteriora- 


74  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

tion  of  skill.  The  barometer  foretells  the  approaching 
storm  for  the  sailor,  but  he  loses  that  sensitive  observation 
that  takes  warning  from  the  weight  of  air  and  the  color  of 
the  water ;  his  glass  enlarges  the  horizon,  but  he  does  not 
acquire  the  far-reaching  eye  of  the  old  navigators  ;  his 
compass,  chronometer,  and  quadrant  guide  his  vessel 
through  the  sea,  but  he  can  no  longer  track  his  course  by 
the  constellated  stars.  Can  we  accomplish  more  for  hu- 
manity with  our  steamships  than  Columbus  with  his  little 
fleet  that  would  now  scarcely  be  trusted  out  of  sight  of 
the  head-lands  ?  Will  our  Monitors  and  Dunderbergs,  our 
Puritans  and  Dictators  give  us  abler  or  more  daring  com- 
manders than  Paul  Jones,  than  Perry,  or  Bainbridge, 
Decatur,  Lawrence,  or  Hull  ?  We  cast  columbiads  and 
astonish  the  world  with  improved  weapons  of  war,  but  do 
we  improve  on  the  leadership  of  Alexander  who  fought 
his  battles  without  gunpowder,  of  Napoleon  who  trans- 
ported his  armies  without  railroads,  or  of  Washington 
who  triumphed  without  means  save  the  resolve  of  his 
soldiers  and  his  own  indomitable  will  ? 

Do  improved  methods  in  mathematics  make  greater 
mathematicians  than  Euclid  ?  Do  multiplied  implements 
of  art  give  the  world  greater  inventors  than  Archimedes  ? 
Does  the  jurisprudence  of  the  ages  instruct  greater  law- 
givers than  Moses?  Do  printed  books  and  all  the  aids 
and  advancement  of  learning  educate  grander  endowments 
than  Plato's  or  Aristotle's  ? 

In  a  mechanical  age  man  relies  too  much  upon  means 
and  instruments,  too  little  upon  himself,  and  he  may  find 
that  for  a  time  at  least,  through  minute  divisions  of  mental 
and  manual  occupation,  all  the  externals  of  civilization — 
the  appliances  of  art  and  even  the  facilities  of  learning — can 
continue  to  increase  while  his  own  powers  silently  decay. 
We  may  press  the  secrets  of  nature  into  our  service  and 
they  revenge  themselves  by  stealing  away  our  strength. 
The   sun  paints  our  pictures,  but  where  is  the  Raphael 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  75 

who  can  illumine  the  ages  with  the  sun-bright  pictures  of 
his  soul?  Boston  plumes  herself  on  the  possession  of  a 
magnificent  organ,  but  she  cannot  command  the  genius  of 
a  Mozart  to  compose  its  anthems.  Anybody  can  rush 
into  print,  but  where  is  the  book  of  to-day  that  will  sur- 
vive the  century  ?  Our  age  even  grows  incredulous  of  the 
existence  of  great  men.  Homer  becomes  a  myth — Shakes- 
peare is  declared  an  alias. 

The  highest  results  of  genius  may  become  habits  that 
the  mind  indolently  learns  to  use,  and  the  aid  they  lend 
it  may  relax  its  vigor.  It  required  thousands  of  years  of 
experience  and  the  noblest  powers  of  invention  ever  given 
to  man,  to  create  letters — written  language  ;  now  the  child 
learns  their  use  while  playing  with  his  toys,  and  scarcely 
taxes  his  memory,  but  the  world  has  lost  the  genius  that 
gave  it  its  sublimest  art. 

Learning  itself  may  become  almost  mechanical.  Com- 
mitting to  memory  "  Barbara,  Clelarent,  Ferioque,"  the 
ability  to  reduce  an  argument  to  its  appropriate  syllogism, 
does  not  confer  the  power  to  reason  like  Butler  or  Spinosa. 
One  may  conjugate  the  Greek  verb  and  know  nothing  of 
Greek  mind — do  Demosthenes  into  English  and  not  feel 
the  fiery  spirit  that  throbs  in  his  sentences. 

In  an  age  when  books  were  scarce  and  inaccessible, 
when  the  aids  to  learning  were  few,  when  instruction  was 
oral,  the  student  realized  that  he  must  make  the  lesson  his 
own  when  it  fell  from  the  lips  of  his  master.  He  must 
more  than  comprehend  its  truth  ;  it  must  become  apart  of 
himself — purge  the  film  from  his  mental  vision,  arterialize 
the  blood,  and  knit  the  muscles  of  his  intellectual  frame. 
He  must  find,  too,  other  instructors,  nobler  than  masters 
and  books.  Nature  was  his  teacher  and  his  own  soul  the 
constant  volume  of  his  study.  Then  "  knowledge  was 
power"  ;  now,  it  may  be  a  weapon  found  in  an  encyclo- 
pedia to  be  used  on  occasion,  then  left  to  rust  in  its 
armory. 


y6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

If  the  American  scholar  of  to-day  would  discharge  the 
debt  he  owes  to  his  country  and  humanity,  he  must  make 
his  learning  a  living  force — permeate  it  with  the  fire  of 
his  spirit,  vitalize  it  with  the  blood  of  his  heart.  He  must 
slack  his  burning  thirst  at  the  fountains  as  well  as  at  the 
cisterns  ;  must  know  men  as  well  as  books.  He  will  go 
to  the  tombs  of  the  past  for  the  lessons  of  experience,  but 
he  must  not  tarry  there  until  mould  of  the  grave  settles 
upon  his  thoughts.  The  present — with  its  fierce  activities, 
its  burning  hopes,  its  strong  necessities  and  awful  responsi- 
bilities— claims  him  as  a  living  man,  an  embodied  energy, 
an  incarnate  power.  It  were  better  for  him  never  to  have 
been  born  than  to  be  educated  to  that  cold-blood,  critical, 
soulless  standpoint,  where  he  assumes  to  be  a  spectator 
of  life's  drama,  indifferent  to  the  result,  and  not  a  God- 
appointed  actor  in  its  stirring  scenes.  Truth  must  be  for 
him,  not  an  abstraction,  not  a  dream,  not  an  image  seen 
in  the  mind  of  another,  but  an  internal  verity — a  guiding 
star.  He  must  follow  it,  love  it,  worship  it — worship  it  to 
self-forgetfulness.  Self-forgetfulness !  That  is  the  true 
secret  of  strength,  achievement,  greatness — the  secret  even 
of  ease,  grace,  and  polish.  How  pure  and  limpid  flows  the 
stream  of  conversation  when  we  forget  that  its  source  is 
within  ourselves.  How  musical  are  the  tones  that  are  not 
pitched  to  the  key-note  of  vanity  ;  how  graceful  the  move- 
ments that  are  not  clouded  by  our  own  shadows.  Into  what 
empyrean  heights  does  the  soul  arise,  how  does  its  wing 
cleave  the  upper  air  of  thought,  when  it  is  not  burdened 
by  self-consciousness.  Into  what  heroic  forms  does  the 
being  grow,  what  martyr-suffering  can  it  endure,  of  what 
sublime  action  is  it  capable,  through  forgetfulness  of  self. 

When  the  samphire  gatherer  grows  dizzy  in  gazing  at 
the  depths  below  him,  he  turns  his  face  upward  and  looks 
at  the  heights  above.  If  the  scholar  should  ever  grow 
giddy  with  vanity  from  the  plaudits  that  come  up  from 
beneath  him,  let  him  look  aloft — at  the  mountain  heights 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  J  J 

where  Newton  dwelt,  where  Shakespeare  sang,  where  Plato 
taught,  and  Socrates  died — at  the  heights  above  the  stars, 
where  the  serene,  all-environing  laws  encircle  nature  and 
life — reverently  at  the  heights  above  the  universe — to  the 
Eternal  Throne,  from  whose  awful  mystery  there  came  a 
Messenger  to  earth,  worthy  to  wear  the  crown  of  heaven, 
the  constant  teaching  of  whose  life  was  humility.  Not 
the  humility  of  fear,  not  servility,  but  that  self-forgetful- 
ness  that  dares  all  things,  hopes  all  things,  suffers  all  things, 
for  THE  TRUTH  ! 

ADDRESS 

AT    THE    OPENING    OF    THE    SIXTH    INDUSTRIAL    EXHIBITION    OF 
THE    MECHANICS   INSTITUTE. 

SAN    FRANCISCO,    AUGUST    8,   l868. 

Whatever  virtues  may  rightfully  be  ascribed  to  this 
nineteenth  century  in  which  we  live,  humility  is  not  one 
of  them.  It  is  a  philanthropic  age.  Never  before  were 
there  so  many  benevolent  organizations  ;  never  were  the 
helpless,  the  blind,  the  insane,  so  tenderly  cared  for.  It 
is  a  heroic  century — its  sixty-eight  years  have  been  full  of 
that  heroism  that  does  not  "  set  life  at  a  pin's  fee."  It 
is  a  democratic  age.  Never  have  the  people  been  of  so 
much  account,  and  seldom  has  genius  been  so  rare.  It  is 
pre-eminently  an  age  of  mechanical  invention.  It  makes 
steam  bear  its  burdens,  lightning  carry  its  messages,  the 
sun  paint  its  pictures.  But  it  is  not  a  modest  age.  It 
does  not  lack  self-confidence  or  self-praise.  It  is  brim  full 
and  running  over  with  egotism.  It  regards  with  self-com- 
placent pity  the  centuries  gone  before  that  did  not  have 
steamboats,  railroads,  and  telegraphs,  sewing-machines, 
cooking-stoves,  lucifer  matches,  steel  pens,  cylinder 
presses,  power  looms,  cotton-gins,  gang-plows,  reapers, 
thrashers,     apple-parers,    turning-lathes,     nitro-glycerine, 


78  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

giant  powder,  columbiads,  needle  guns,  Colt's  revolvers, 
steam  paddies,  tracklayers,  baby-jumpers,  chloroform, 
photographs,  and  coal  oil.  It  looks  with  a  kind  of  com- 
miseration on  the  ages  to  come,  when  the  world  will 
have  to  keep  on  using  old  tools,  as  human  ingenuity  and 
nature  will  be  alike  exhausted,  and  there  will  be  no  new 
forms  to  invent,  no  new  forces  to  discover.  If  it  experi- 
ences a  momentary  chagrin  because  it  has  not  achieved 
the  perpetual  motion,  nor  successfully  an  avatar,  it  is  con- 
soled with  the  reflection  that  it  has  not  accomplished  the 
first  because  it  is  impossible,  and  that  it  will  the  second 
because  it  is  possible.  In  short,  whoever  has  not  managed 
to  be  born  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  been  very  un- 
fortunate, or  has  made  a  great  mistake. 

Standing  in  this  temple  of  art,  this  armory  of  labor, 
filled  with  the  implements  with  which  toil  carries  on  its 
warfare  with  want,  and  beautiful  with  the  evidence  of  its 
triumphs,  we  may  at  least  claim  with  becoming  modesty 
that  the  world  is  now  fast  learning  how  it  can  most  easily 
get  its  daily  bread — how  labor  can  be  made  most  produc- 
tive for  the  supply  of  physical  wants.  Two  other  ques- 
tions behind  that — how  the  burdens  and  rewards  of  labor 
shall  be  equitably  distributed,  and  how  the  time  not 
needed  for  the  supply  of  physical  wants  shall  be  so  em- 
ployed that  the  age  may  be  clothed  with  an  intellectual 
and  spiritual  glory  equal  to  its  material  wealth  and  power, 
— it  has  scarcely  begun  to  solve ;  questions  that  may  not  be 
rightly  solved  until  a  civilization  shall  arise  as  superior  to 
ours  as  ours  is  to  barbarism,  in  a  future  as  distant  from  us 
as  we  are  from  the  creation  of  man. 

The  problem  of  daily  bread,  however,  is  neither  easy 
nor  unimportant.  If  men  depended  upon  nature  alone 
for  food,  upon  game,  fish,  and  wild  fruits,  the  country 
would  be  crowded  where  population  averaged  one  to  five 
square  miles.  The  trapper  was  right,  if  he  would  remain 
a  trapper,  in  moving  farther  west,  because  the  settlement 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  79 

was  getting  too  thick  for  elbow-room  when  his  neighbor 
built  his  cabin  only  ten  miles  away. 

Consider  what  the  world  consumes  every  year.  Two 
hundred  million  pounds  of  flour  and  one  hundred  and 
thirty  million  pounds  of  meat  go  down  the  throat  of  New 
York  City  yearly.  Multiply  by  a  million,  and  if  you  can 
conceive  the  result  you  will  have  some  idea  of  what  it 
takes  to  feed  the  world  with  bare  necessities.  California 
consumes  annually  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  thousand 
barrels  of  flour,  seven  hundred  thousand  bushels  of 
potatoes,  seventy  million  pounds  of  meat,  a  thousand 
tons  of  codfish,  thirty-eight  million  pounds  of  sugar, 
five  million  pounds  of  coffee,  one  and  a  half  million 
pounds  of  tea,  five  million  pounds  of  butter,  twenty 
million  pounds  of  rice ;  wears  out  fifteen  million  dollars 
worth  of  dry  goods  and  shoe  leather,  and  burns  up,  beside 
houses  and  mountain  towns,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand tons  of  coal,  four  million  pounds  of  powder,  four 
million  pounds  of  candles,  one  million  gallons  of  coal-oil, 
and  fifty  millions  of  cigars,  not  to  mention  the  fifteen 
hundred  thousand  gallons  of  whisky  that  annually  assist 
to  consume  us.  If  all  this  had  to  be  raised,  mined,  and 
manufactured,  or  paid  for  by  the  labor  of  our  hands,  un- 
assisted by  art,  we  would  have  few  holidays  and  no 
pageants  like  this.  If  the  world  had  to  be  housed,  fed, 
and  clothed  with  only  such  crude  tools  as  actual  necessity 
would  suggest,  the  many  would  be  slaves  to  the  few,  and 
worn  out  in  their  service,  or  all  would  be  the  slaves  of 
toil.  There  could  be  no  accumulations,  nothing  laid  up 
against  a  bad  season  or  a  rainy  day,  and  the  wolf  would 
be  continually  at  the  door.  Then,  whoever  would  suc- 
ceed in  pointing  a  stick  with  iron  to  scratch  the  ground 
at  seedtime,  and  whoever  would  teach  a  dog  to  guard  the 
sheep  while  the  shepherd  slept,  would  be  benefactors  of 
the  race.  The  man  who  would  discover  that  salt  would 
preserve  meat   would  deserve  a  patent  of  nobility  ;  he 


80  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

who  would  tame  a  horse  and  make  him  draw  a  sled  and 
carry  his  master  would  be  a  king;  and  he  who  would 
make  the  wind  and  the  water  turn  a  wheel  to  grind  the 
corn  might  be  worshipped  as  a  god.  Then  imagine  that 
after  a  day's  toil  that  brought  no  hope,  and  a  night's 
sleep  that  brought  no  dreams  of  rest,  men  should  sud- 
denly awake  as  into  a  world  of  enchantment,  and  find 
themselves  supernaturally  endowed,  so  that  they  could 
accomplish  with  their  hands  or  by  a  wish  all  that  we  do 
with  all  the  tools,  machinery,  and  appliances  of  modern 
life,  as  though  each  had  a  hundred  arms  and  were  gifted 
with  magic — as  though  each  were  winged  with  swiftness 
like  the  wind,  had  sinews  of  steel,  and  strength  like  the 
power  of  steam  ;  and  you  will  appreciate  the  miracle  of 
art — realize  what  a  load  of  toil  invention  has  lifted  from 
the  shoulders,  what  a  burden  of  care  it  has  taken  from  the 
heart  of  humanity.  Then,  too,  you  will  learn  where  the 
leisure  comes  from  after  actual  wants  are  supplied,  part 
of  which  goes  into  luxuries,  ornaments,  books,  newspapers, 
paintings,  music,  homes,  schools,  churches,  cities,  culture ; 
part  into  idleness,  ennuiy  whisky,  tobacco,  fast  life,  folly, 
vice,  crime,  and  all  of  which  is  called — civilization. 

But  this  miracle  of  art  is  not  the  work  of  a  night  or  the 
glory  of  an  age  ;  it  is  the  work  and  glory  of  the  whole  of 
man's  life  on  earth.  In  fable  Minerva  sprang,  armed  and 
panoplied,  from  the  brain  of  Jove  ;  but  in  fact  art  is  the 
slow  growth  of  time.  Take,  as  an  illustration,  the  art  of 
printing.  The  idea  of  printing  is  older  than  history  or 
tradition.  It  is  so  natural  and  easy,  it  would  have  been 
strange  if  the  idea  of  the  printed  book  had  not  been  sug- 
gested to  Adam,  if  he  had  known  his  letters,  by  his  own 
footprints  on  the  sand.  Seals  were  in  use  before  the 
book  of  Job  (possibly  the  oldest  book  in  the  world)  was 
written,  and  seals,  used  for  making  impressions,  contain 
the  whole  principle  of  printing.  Bricks  and  tiles,  covered 
with  characters  impressed  upon  the  clay  before  it  was 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  8 1 

burned,  were  common  not  only  in  Rome  and  Athens  but 
in  Babylon  and  Nineveh.  Wood  engraving  was  brought 
into  Europe  from  the  East  long  before  books  were 
printed.  The  printing  of  playing-cards  probably  first 
suggested  the  printing  of  books,  which  was  at  first  simply 
wood  engraving,  each  page  being  printed  upon  a  block 
with  raised  letters ;  then  the  letters  were  separated  into 
wooden  movable  types  ;  then  metallic  types  were  cast. 
Meantime  the  Arabs — by  what  processes  of  thought,  by 
what  slow  stages  of  invention,  I  know  not — had  pro- 
gressed from  using  the  bark  of  plants,  the  papyrus  of  the 
Egyptian,  to  the  manufacture  of  paper.  The  method  of 
casting  types  so  that  they  could  be  easily  multiplied,  and 
the  manufacture  of  paper,  were  the  real  difficulties  in  the 
invention  of  printing ;  when  these  were  overcome  Hoe's 
cylinder  press  became  easy,  though  it  took  the  improve- 
ments of  four  hundred  years  to  attain  it.  Nay,  THE 
PRESS,  snowing  newspapers  daily  all  over  the  land,  and 
sending  streams  of  knowledge  through  all  lands,  so  that 
whoever  is  athirst  may  come  and  drink,  was  as  inevitable 
as  the  succession  of  the  ages  when  Job  had  written :  "  It 
is  turned  as  clay  to  the  seal." 

Two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  Hero,  of  Alex- 
andria, described  a  steam  toy — a  mere  plaything.  After 
two  thousand  years  of  experiments,  suggestions,  and  im- 
provements, that  plaything  became  the  steam-engine.  In 
the  same  manner  the  round-bottomed  canoe,  made  from  a 
log  hollowed  out  with  fire,  grew  into  a  ship.  Fulton  com- 
bined these  two  growths  and  made  the  steamboat.  For 
more  than  a  hundred  years  before  Watt  was  born,  the 
tramroad  had  been  in  use  in  England  for  conveying  coal 
from  the  colliery  to  the  place  of  shipment.  Parallel  rails, 
at  first  of  wood,  then  of  iron,  were  laid,  to  which  wagons 
with  grooved  wheels  were  fitted,  and  drawn  by  horses. 
Stephenson  took  the  engine  of  Watt,  added  the  steam 
blast,  mounted  it  on  driving-wheels,  and  made  the  loco- 


•82  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

motive  ;  put  it  on  the  tramroad,  and  gave  the  world  the 
railway. 

Hargrave's  spinning-jenny,  Arkwright's  spinning-frame, 
and  Cartright's  power  loom,  which  were  but  the  develop- 
ment of  the  distaff,  the  spinning-wheel,  and  of  the  hand 
loom  in  which  Joseph's  many-colored  coat  was  woven, 
were  contemporary  with  the  invention  of  the  condensing 
steam-engine  by  Watt — about  1780 — and  the  method  of 
puddling  and  rolling  iron  immediately  followed.  The 
steam-engine  revolutionized  industry  as  gunpowder  had 
war.  Furnishing  a  power  stupendous  in  its  strength, 
marvellous  in  "  the  ease,  precision,  and  ductility  with 
which  it  can  be  varied  and  applied,  so  that  it  can  engrave 
a  seal  or  crush  masses  of  obdurate  metal ;  draw  out,  with- 
out breaking,  a  thread  fine  as  a  gossamer,  and  lift  a  ship 
of  war  like  a  bubble  in  the  air  ;  embroider  muslin  and 
forge  anchors ;  cut  steel  into  ribbons  and  impel  loaded 
vessels  against  the  fury  of  the  winds  and  waves ;  "  it  not  only 
supplemented  all  mechanical  arts,  but  it  so  stimulated  the 
inventive  faculties  that  since  then  men  have  expressed 
their  best  thoughts  in  wood  and  iron.  Surrounded  here 
by  these  thoughts  embodied  in  the  visible  forms  of  indus- 
try and  art,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  poem,  the  epic  of 
human  progress,  in  which  the  voices  of  all  the  ages  blend, 
grander  in  its  suggestions,  more  inspiring  in  its  hopes,  and 
sublimer  in  its  theme  than  Homer,  or  Dante,  or  Milton 
sang. 

But  let  us  not  suppose  that  the  germs  of  art  have 
reached  their  full  fruition  in  our  age,  nor  that  the  future 
will  plagiarize  the  present  or  repeat  the  past.  A  galvanic 
toy,  the  plaything  of  to-day,  may  one  day  supersede  the 
steam-engine.  Steam,  that  is  usually  cited  as  the  highest 
instance  of  the  dominion  of  the  mind  over  matter,  is  ex- 
pensive in  the  machinery  and  fuel  it  requires,  dangerous 
and  destructive  in  its  explosive  properties.  Nature's 
grand   forces  are  silent  and  safe.     The  rays  of  the  sun 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  83 

exercise  on  earthly  objects  every  day  a  mechanical  power 
"  in  comparison  with  which  the  erection  of  the  Egyptian 
pyramids  dwindles  into  the  labor  of  mites."  The  force 
that  binds  the  earth  together,  particle  to  particle,  is 
mightier  than  the  earthquake  that  comes  in  visitation  of 
terror.  Who  can  touch  the  chain  by  which  the  sun  holds 
the  planets  in  their  orbits  ?  Hear  what  Professor  Tyn- 
dall,  the  highest  scientific  authority,  says,  after  a  mathe- 
matical calculation  of  one  of  the  molecular  forces  that  are 
lavished  around  us :  "I  have  seen  the  wild  stone  ava- 
lanches of  the  Alps,  which  smoke  and  thunder  down  the 
declivities  with  a  vehemence  almost  sufficient  to  stun  the 
observer.  I  have  also  seen  snow-flakes  descending  so 
softly  as  not  to  hurt  the  fragile  spangles  of  which  they  are 
composed  ;  yet,  to  produce  from  aqueous  vapor  a  quantity 
of  that  tender  material  which  a  child  could  carry,  demands 
an  exertion  of  energy  competent  to  gather  up  the  shat- 
tered blocks  of  the  largest  stone  avalanche  I  have  ever 
seen,  and  pitch  them  to  twice  the  height  from  which  they 
fell."  Shall  not  these  forces,  in  which  nature  is  so  prodi- 
gal, be  utilized  in  the  art  and  service  of  man  ? 

There  are  dominions  of  thought  in  which  the  mind  has 
reached  the  limits  of  its  capacity,  but  not  in  the  sphere 
of  mechanical  invention.  If  we  could  be  permitted  to 
enter  an  art  exhibition  at  Athens  in  the  days  of  Pericles, 
while  wandering  through  the  department  of  machinery, 
agricultural  implements,  mechanical  tools  and  power,  we 
might  exclaim  against  the  poverty  of  the  Greek  mind  and 
the  barrenness  of  Grecian  life.  But  when  the  statues  of 
Phidias  were  unveiled — when  those  marbles  "whose  head- 
less, armless  trunks,  in  their  severe  and  awful  beauty,  are 
at  once  the  delight,  admiration,  and  despair  of  modern 
artists,"  stood  revealed  in  the  full  glory  of  their  original 
perfection,  we  would  admit  that  there,  at  least,  the  world 
has  made  no  progress,  for  none  was  possible. 

Or,  if  a  disciple  of  the  divine  Plato  could  revisit  the 


84  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

earth,  he  might  hear  at  the  High  School  in  San  Francisco, 
boys  and  girls  reciting,  like  a  household  tale,  truths  in 
science  his  master  would  have  died  to  know  ;  but  when 
he  would  mingle  with  the  sages  of  the  earth,  he  would  find 
that  in  philosophy  the  thoughts  of  his  great  teacher  were 
the  boundaries  of  human  speculation ;  that  the  highest 
office  of  philosophy  now  was  but  to  interpret  thoughts 
uttered  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago.  He  could  wander 
around  the  world  and  hear  no  language  spoken  superior 
to  the  Greek  in  power,  compass,  and  flexibility  ;  and  he 
would  discover  that  in  poetry,  eloquence,  and  history,  the 
Grecian  mind  had  furnished  the  models  for  all  succeeding 
ages. 

In  eloquence,  poetry,  and  metaphysical  philosophy,  in 
sculpture,  painting,  and  possibly  in  the  forms  of  architec- 
ture, in  language  as  a  medium  for  the  expression  of 
thought,  and  possibly  in  music,  the  language  of  the  emo- 
tions, there  will  be  no  higher  attainment  than  has  already 
been  reached.  No  race  will  ever  arise  superior  to  the 
Greek  in  intellectual  and  physical  organization ;  and  no 
men  born  of  women  will  ever  thrust  Homer  and  Shake- 
speare, Phidias  and  Raphael,  Demosthenes  and  Mozart, 
from  their  thrones  of  pre-eminence. 

There  are  also  two  devices  or  inventions  which  are, 
humanly  speaking,  perfect.  One  is  that  of  Arabic  nu- 
merals, and  the  method  of  decimation,  by  which  the  ten 
simple  figures  the  school-boy  scrawls  upon  his  slate  can 
be  made  to  express  everything  the  mind  can  conceive  in 
numbers,  reaching  upward  toward  the  infinite  and  down- 
ward toward  the  infinitesimal.  The  other  is  the  inven- 
tion of  the  alphabet,  by  which  twenty-six  characters  have 
become  the  factors  of  all  human  intelligence,  bearing  from 
generation  to  generation  the  thoughts,  and  wisdom,  and 
learning  of  men  ;  have  become  the  world's  memory,  per- 
mitting nothing  to  perish  that  is  worthy  to  survive ;  an 
invention  so  difficult  to  conceive,  so  simple  in  use,  so 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  85 

grand  and  complete,  that  the  world  had  better  lose  all 
other  arts  combined  than  to  forget  its  A,  B,  C's.  Some- 
times I  have  thought  of  them  as  of  twenty-six  soldiers  that 
set  out  to  conquer  the  world.  That  A  was  an  archer, 
and  B  was  a  bugler,  and  C  was  a  corporal,  and  D  was  a 
drummer,  and  E  was  an  ensign,  and  F  was  a  fifer,  and  G 
was  a  gunner,  down  to  Z,  who  was  a  zouave  ;  and  these 
twenty-six  drill-sergeants  have  subdued  the  kingdoms  of 
the  earth  and  of  the  air ;  taken  possession  of  the  realms 
of  thought,  and  founded  a  republic  of  which  the  wise  and 
noble  of  all  time  are  citizens  and  contemporaries  ;  where 
there  is  neither  debt  nor  forgetfulness — the  imperial  re- 
public of  letters.  Again  I  have  thought  of  them  as  of  a 
telegraphic  cable  laid  beneath  the  waters  of  time,  safe 
from  disturbing  storm  and  tempest — so  short  the  child's 
primer  will  contain  it — so  long  it  connects  the  remotest 
ages  with  the  present,  and  will  stretch  to  the  last  "  syllable 
of  recorded  time."  We  pride  ourselves  on  the  successful 
laying  of  the  Atlantic  cable  as  the  crowning  achievement 
of  human  invention ;  but  here  is  a  cable  that  speaks  not 
in  broken,  doubtful,  and  sibylline  utterance,  but  charged 
with  the  whole  spiritual  power  of  all  human  intelligence, 
with  a  circuit  reaching  through  all  time,  connecting  all 
brains  and  all  hearts  in  its  network,  and  certain  to  carry 
every  message  worthy  to  go  there  to  the  last  man  who 
shall  live  upon  earth. 

Here  is  an  invention  so  simple  that  the  child  learns  its 
use  while  playing  with  his  blocks  ;  so  grand  that  all  gen- 
erations cannot  exhaust  its  capabilities ;  so  perfect  no  age 
will  be  able  to  add  to  or  take  from.  In  the  invention  of  let- 
ters man  arose  nearest  to  creative  power.  In  other  inven- 
tions he  has  dealt  with  material  substance,  with  tangible 
things  ;  in  letters  he  created  from  nothing  forms  into  which 
he  himself  could  breathe  the  spirit  of  life,  the  immortal 
soul  of  power,  and  eloquence,  and  beauty. 

In  letters  the  mind  has  reached  the  highest  heaven  of 


86  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

invention ;  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts  it  has  touched 
the  boundaries  of  its  power,  and  knows  where  the  horizon 
meets  the  earth  ;  but  in  science  and  the  mechanical  arts 
there  will  be  no  limit  to  improvement  while  nature  has 
one  secret  unrevealed,  one  force  unappropriated.  In 
those  grand  domains  there  "  is  ample  scope  and  verge 
enough  "  for  the  thought,  investigation,  and  skill  of  all 
generations  to  come,  and  the  work  of  each  generation  will 
be  but  the  scaffolding  on  which  the  next  shall  stand, 
building  ever  toward  a  sky  that  recedes  as  it  is  ap- 
proached. 

With  grateful  reverence  to  the  past,  whose  inheritance 
we  enjoy,  proud  of  the  achievements  of  the  present,  look- 
ing hopefully  to  the  future,  to  whose  glories  our  exertions 
will  contribute,  in  the  name  of  free  and  intelligent  labor 
we  dedicate  this  Hall  to  Industrial  Art,  conscious  that 
year  by  year  succeeding  structures  will  here  arise  dedicated 
to  the  same  purpose,  in  ever-increasing  magnificence  of 
display  and  completeness  of  design  and  execution,  evi- 
dencing the  progress  of  our  State,  our  Country,  and  the 
whole  race  of  man. 

EXTRACT  FROM  ADDRESS 

TO    THE   INDEPENDENT    ORDER   OF   ODD   FELLOWS. 

DELIVERED  AT   SACRAMENTO,    CAL.,    MAY   10,  189I. 

On  a  beautiful  night,  not  long  since,  I  was  standing  on 
the  hillside  at  the  intersection  of  Bush  and  Stockton 
streets,  in  San  Francisco,  when  the  city  had  gone  to  sleep. 
Within  the  narrow  limits  of  my  vision  nearly  two  hundred 
thousand  tired  bodies  and  busy  brains  had  taken  refuge 
from  the  toils,  cares,  and  schemes  of  the  noisy  day,  in  the 
still  world  of  slumber.  The  street  lamps  were  not  burn- 
ing; and  the  blending  of  soft  moonlight  and  deep  shadow 
gave  the  scene  the  weird  beauty  of  enchantment.     For  a 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  87 

few  moments  I  endeavored  to  transport  myself  backward 
in  time,  and  to  imagine  myself  standing  on  the  same  spot 
twenty-five  years  before,  with  nothing  around  me  but  the 
bare  hills,  drifting  sands,  and  lonely  waters.  I  recalled 
the  solitude,  which  shall  there  never  perhaps  again  recur, 
when  the  two  hundred  thousand  hearts,  whose  pulsations 
I  could  almost  feel,  had  either  not  commenced  their  life- 
long beat,  or  were  scattered  wide  as  the  world.  I  tried  to 
realize  the  sense  of  that  loneliness  which  was  so  long  the 
brooding  presence  of  the  place. 

Then  the  real  scene  rushed  upon  me  as  one  of  true  en- 
chantment. A  magic  more  potent  than  that  of  ring  and 
lamp  and  wand  had  called  a  city  from  the  waste — the 
magic  of  Labor  and  Art.  It  required  the  toil  of  three 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  men  for  twenty  years  to 
build  one  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  one  of  whose  pur- 
poses was  to  serve  as  a  mausoleum  for  a  dead  king.  Now 
the  very  name  of  the  king  is  forgotten,  the  art  by  which 
the  stupendous  structure  was  built  is  lost,  and  the  pyra- 
mid by  the  Nile,  with  thirty  centuries  looking  down  from 
its  summit,  proclaims  to  the  passing  moment  only  the  sad 
truth  that  in  the  birth-place  of  civilization  the  rulers  were 
tyrants  and  the  people  slaves. 

The  city  about  me,  all  built  with  a  tenth  of  the  labor 
devoted  to  a  receptacle  for  the  dust  of  royalty,  was  the 
home  of  almost  two  hundred  thousand  living  souls.  The 
pyramid  and  the  city  were  both  monuments  of  skill  and 
labor.  The  moral  of  the  one  was  that  the  labor  of  slaves 
in  the  service  of  a  master  is  vanity ;  of  the  other,  that  the 
labor  of  freemen,  guided  by  individual  uses  and  necessi- 
ties, is  wisdom  ;  the  art  of  the  one  is  perishable  ;  of  the 
other,  indestructible  as  the  nature  of  man.  Some  human 
use  had  called  into  existence  every  house  around  me. 
Each  was  a  realized  thought — an  answer  to  some  want, 
necessity,  desire,  or  aspiration  of  human  nature.  The 
houses,  built  for  family  shelter,  were  the  visible  types  of 


88  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

the  sacredness  of  family  ties  and  domestic  love.  The 
churches  were  the  material  expression  of  the  religious 
sentiment,  which,  varying  in  form,  is  wide  as  humanity, 
and  deep  as  the  well-springs  of  our  being.  The  school- 
houses  symbolized  the  love  the  old  feel  for  the  young, 
and  the  hope  that  the  children's  future  may  be  better 
than  their  fathers'  past.  The  manufactories,  shops,  stores, 
and  banks,  the  marts  of  toil,  trade,  and  money,  were  the 
evidences  of  the  ceaseless  struggle  of  life  with  the  primal 
sentence  of  labor.  Skilful  craftsmen  had  formed  men's 
thoughts  into  visible  things.  Not  a  stone  or  brick  or 
timber  in  all  these  structures  had  been  placed  that  did 
not  represent  some  thought  executed,  some  labor  accom- 
plished, some  triumph  of  art,  some  day  of  toil.  Near  me 
arose  the  twin  spires  of  the  Hebrew  synagogue,  and  from 
their  gleaming  tops  there  seemed  reflected  the  light  of  a 
moon  that  shone  o'er  Israel  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Abraham  had  laid  the  corner-stone  of  that  building ; 
Solomon  had  helped  to  shape  its  masonry  ;  the  tables 
Moses  brought  from  Sinai  were  set  within  its  walls ;  there 
still  echoed  the  voice  of  David  ;  the  coal  "  that  touched 
Isaiah's  hallowed  lips  "  still  lived  upon  its  altar. 

To-day  we  have  met  to  dedicate  a  temple,  raised  by 
generous  hearts  and  liberal  hands,  and  I  am  led  to  ask, 
what  thought  does  it  express,  to  what  use  is  it  devoted, 
what  necessity  does  it  meet,  to  justify  the  almost  prodigal 
expenditure  of  its  erection?  It  stands  in  fair  proportions, 
the  pride  and  ornament  of  the  city  ;  but  it  was  no  desire 
of  architectural  triumph  that  called  it  into  existence  ;  if 
so  its  bricks  might  have  remained  clay,  its  stones  in  the 
quarry,  its  timbers  in  the  forest,  for  the  Parthenon,  built 
twenty-three  hundred  years  ago,  was  transcendently  more 
beautiful.  Its  foundations  are  solid,  its  materials  enduring, 
but  the  pyramids,  that  were  five  hundred  years  old  when 
Solomon  was  born,  will  stand  a  hundred  centuries  after 
these  walls  are  dust.     Was  there   any   purpose   in   this 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  89 

building,  any  inspiration  in  its  conception,  that  will  re- 
deem it  from  decay  and  preserve  its  idea  spiritually 
whole,  when  its  outward  form  has  passed  away  ?  So  far 
as  any  structure  built  by  hands,  whether  it  be  frail  as 
canvas  or  solid  as  granite,  humble  as  a  log  school-house, 
or  grand  as  St.  Peter's,  represents  a  living  truth,  answers 
to  some  abiding  want  of  our  nature,  that  far  it  is  conse- 
crated "  above  the  power  of  words  to  add  to  or  take 
from  " — dedicated  to  human  happiness  and  advancement; 
and  if  it  should  be  destroyed  by  the  elements,  or  when  it 
shall  crumble  through  lapse  of  years,  the  same  truth  will 
re-embody  itself,  the  same  want  will  call  into  existence 
other  and  fairer  forms,  upon  firmer  foundations,  while 
essential  truth  and  man's  wants  and  aspirations  remain 
unchanged. 


EXTRACT  FROM  ORATION 

DELIVERED  AT  NEVADA  CITY,  CAL.,  JULY  4,  1872. 

This  feeling  of  patriotism  is  not  peculiar  to  free  people 
and  to  pleasant  lands.  The  inhabitants  of  the  desert  and 
frozen  North,  the  oppressed  and  down-trodden,  even  the 
enslaved,  love  and  cherish  an  ideal  country,  free  from 
oppression,  shame,  and  wrong.  The  leaders  of  revolu- 
tions war  against  governments  in  the  name  of  country. 
Isabella  is  dethroned  in  the  name  of  Spain ;  Charles  the 
First  is  beheaded  in  the  name  of  England ;  Louis  the 
Sixteenth  in  the  name  of  France  ;  Napoleon  the  Third 
flies,  the  Empire  is  dissolved,  but  France  lives  in  the 
heart  of  the  French,  rich  in  the  loss  of  its  bauble  crown. 
The  feeling  survives  even  the  political  existence  of  its 
object,  and  with  the  wandering  Pole  memory  has  all  the 
intensity  of  grief  and  ardor  of  love.  It  may  be  well  upon 
an  occasion  like  this  to  inquire,  not  what  claims  our  coun- 


/  /  _—  mn  -  TV  ~" 


90 


NEWTON  BOOTH, 


try  has  upon  our  love,  for  that  we  render  instinctively,  but 
what  claims  has  it  to  honor  and  regard  before  the  tribunal 
of  public  opinion  of  the  world? 

England  excels  it  in  stability  and  wealth  ;  France  in  re- 
finement ;  Germany  in  learning  ;  Italy  in  art ;  Russia  in 
extent  of  territory,  and  China  has  ten  times  its  popula- 
tion. It  cannot  challenge  the  reverence  of  mankind  for 
its  length  of  days,  or  point  to  a  long  line  of  achievements 
reaching  backwards  through  history.  The  space  it  occu- 
pies in  universal  history  is  brief  as  an  hour  in  the  life  of  a 
man.  A  short  time  since,  I  was  interested  in  studying  a 
map,  or  chart,  designed  to  illustrate  the  historical  dura- 
tion of  all  the  great  nations  that  have  ever  existed,  and 
the  varying  extent  of  their  empires.  It  was  a  sad  lesson 
of  the  littleness  of  human  greatness.  Nations  that  for 
thousands  of  years,  seemed  to  govern  and  direct  the 
whole  course  of  events,  have  disappeared,  the  memorials 
of  their  existence  so  dim  we  can  scarcely  separate  fact 
from  fable,  their  very  languages  dead  and  forgotten.  I 
saw  on  the  map  the  colored  spaces  which  represented 
Egypt,  Assyria,  Persia,  and  Greece,  flowing  in  parallel 
streams  for  two  thousand  years.  Rome  appears  seven 
centuries  before  Christ  as  a  rivulet ;  in  seven  hundred  years 
it  had  become  an  all-engulfing  sea,  and  in  fifteen  hundred 
more  was  lost  in  the  empire  of  the  Turks.  Of  modern 
nations,  England,  France,  the  German  and  Italian  States, 
trace  their  lines  of  history  through  a  thousand  years.  The 
only  stream  which  flows  through  all  time — the  contem- 
porary alike  of  the  oldest  and  youngest  nations — is 
China,  the  mysterious  and  unchanging  land.  In  one  cor- 
ner of  this  map,  occupying  so  small  a  space  as  to  escape 
casual  observation  (you  could  cover  it  with  your  thumb- 
nail) is  represented  the  historical  existence  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  Yes,  our  country  was  born  in  day- 
light, in  the  later  days.  There  is  nothing  of  darkness  or 
tradition  over  its  early  history.     Its  promises  and  records 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  91 

can  be  read  of  men.  What  has  it  done  in  its  brief  ninety- 
six  years  to  deserve  well  of  our  race  ? 

It  has  given  no  new  religion  to  the  world  like  the  He- 
brews, the  Arabs,  and  the  Hindoos — for  I  suppose  we  will 
hardly  claim  Mormonism  as  one  of  our  glories.  It  has 
created  no  new  language  like  the  English,  the  German, 
the  French,  the  Italian,  the  Spanish — and  English  people 
accuse  us  of  corrupting  theirs  by  slang,  and  spoiling  it 
by  speaking  through  the  nose.  It  is  the  parent  of  no  new 
civilization  or  form  of  literature,  for  civilization  and  litera- 
ture in  their  most  modern  forms  are  older  than  our 
country.  It  has  not  invented  letters  or  discovered  conti- 
nents. Its  mechanical  inventions,  except  the  electric 
telegraph,  are  rather  modifications  and  combinations  than 
original  expressions  of  thought.  It  has  produced  no 
general  equal  to  Caesar  or  Napoleon  ;  no  poet  like  Homer, 
or  Shakespeare,  or  Dante  ;  no  philosopher  equal  to  Plato 
or  Bacon  ;  no  natural  philosopher  equal  to  Newton  or 
Kepler ;  no  religious  reformer  equal  to  Luther,  or  Calvin, 
or  Wesley  ;  no  painter  like  Raphael ;  no  builder  like 
Angelo;  no  composer  like  Mozart  or  Handel ;  no  wit  equal 
to  Voltaire ;  no  man  of  culture  like  Goethe.  Before  it 
was  born  the  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  and 
political  equality,  which  are  its  brightest  boast,  were  fully 
known  ;  and  for  thousands  of  years  had  been  the  themes 
of  orators  and  poets,  philosophers  and  statesmen. 

What,  then,  has  our  country  accomplished  in  the  first 
century  of  its  existence  to  vindicate  its  right  to  be  and  to 
discharge  the  debt  which  every  nation  owes  to  universal 
humanity?  Why,  this:  It  has  taken  the  principles  of 
liberty  and  equality  and  organized  them  into  national 
life.  It  has  taken  the  truths  which  were  the  themes  of 
poetry,  eloquence,  and  philosophy,  and  made  them  the 
daily  thoughts  of  common  men.  It  has  brought  them 
from  the  cloister  and  made  them  a  living  force.  It  has 
converted  them  from  speculation  and  poetry  to  experi- 


92  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ment  and  fact.  Out  of  ideas  it  has  made  institutions; 
out  of  theory,  a  form  of  government. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  not  by 
the  American  people,  but  through  them  have  these 
things  been  done.  They  have  not  deliberately  shaped 
and  fashioned  their  government ;  it  is  the  outward  form 
and  semblance  of  an  inward  growth  ;  an  incarnation,  not 
a  garment.  There  can  be  no  royalty  without  the  spirit 
of  allegiance ;  no  religion  without  faith ;  no  republic 
without  the  pride  of  personal  independence  and  habit 
of  self-government ;  and  where  the  spirit  is,  the  form 
will  follow. 

It  is  with  nations  as  with  individuals — each  must  live 
its  own  life,  do  its  own  work,  illustrate  its  own  character. 
The  analysis  of  a  drop  of  water  will  give  you  the  constitu- 
ents of  the  sea.  If  you  knew  the  average  Englishman 
perfectly,  you  would  understand  the  English  constitution, 
and  might  rewrite  English  history.  The  average  American 
is  America  in  miniature.  He  carries  the  possibility  of  the 
thirty-seven  States  and  all  the  Territories  in  the  "  book 
and  volume  of  his  brain."  All  the  lines  of  our  history 
converge  in  him  as  a  focal  point  to  make  him  what  he  is. 
Multiply  him  by  forty  million,  and  you  will  have  the 
living  force  of  the  nation.  Find  the  horizon  of  his 
imagination,  hopes,  and  aspirations,  and  you  can  deter- 
mine the  bounds  of  the  nation's  destiny. 

The  facts  of  our  colonial  history  rendered  any  other 
form  of  government  in  this  country  than  a  Federal  Re- 
public a  moral  impossibility.  Whether  the  colonists  came 
in  the  fervor  of  religious  enthusiasm,  or  in  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  or  were  driven  by  stress  of  poverty,  they 
met  the  same  hard  conditions  of  life  which  demanded 
and  developed  a  sturdy  independence,  self-reliance,  and 
individuality  of  character.  Their  lives  were  taken  out  of 
the  grooves  of  custom,  and  forced  to  make  their  own 
channels.     They  were  as  far  from  all  civilization  as  the 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  93 

Central  Africa,  which  hides  Livingstone,  seems  from  us. 
Imagine  a  colony  going  from  us  into  the  wilds  of  un- 
explored Africa,  not  to  seek  diamonds,  but  to  build 
States,  and  found  an  empire  upon  principles  as  Utopian 
to  us  as  the  American  Constitution  would  have  been  to 
Cecil  or  Walsingham  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth ;  then 
imagine  that  all  the  arts  and  implements  which  have 
been  discovered  and  invented  since  to  make  life  easy  are 
destroyed  and  lost ;  that  there  is  neither  steam-engine 
nor  steel-pointed  plow,  nor  any  skill  to  make  them,  and 
you  will  begin  to  conjecture  what  courage,  what  hardihood 
of  spirit  led  to  the  settlement  of  America,  and  to  appre- 
ciate its  magnificent  results. 

Our  fathers  opened  and  tilled  their  farms,  and  built 
their  houses — their  hands  their  best,  almost  their  only 
implements.  A  savage  foe  did  not  allow  them  to  sleep 
on  their  watch.  The  pressure  of  necessity  compelled 
habits  of  industry.  They  lived  upon  land  which  was  al- 
ways practically,  and  generally  really  their  own.  They 
were  compelled  to  devise  and  administer  their  own  local 
laws  and  institutions.  Locke  framed  a  constitution  and 
laws  for  South  Carolina ;  but  that  embodiment  of  philo- 
sophic wisdom  was  found  to  be  inferior  to  the  enactments 
of  the  Provincial  Assembly.  They  realized  that  the 
divine  right  of  kings  was  destroyed  when  Charles  I.  was 
beheaded.  They  read  the  discussions  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  government  and  "  inalienable  rights  of  man  "  in 
the  revolutions  that  made  Cromwell  a  Protector,  and 
expelled  James  II.  from  the  throne.  With  little  leisure 
for  discursive  thought,  and  little  disposition  for  mere 
literary  culture,  their  minds  were  constantly  familiarized 
with  the  great  truths  of  politics  and  morals.  The  con- 
stant study  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  intensified  the  idea 
of  national  unity,  and  imbued  them  with  a  sense  of  provi- 
dential care. 

Such    a    school    could  not   make    anything   else   than 


94  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

republicans  out  of  such  pupils.  They  were  republican- 
democrats  while  they  were  yet  unconscious  of  it.  They 
entered  upon  the  War  of  the  Revolution  with  professions 
of  allegiance  to  the  Crown  which  they  believed  sincere. 
They  did  not  know  their  own  hearts.  Again,  it  is  with 
nations  as  with  men — neither  know  their  capabilities, 
their  inmost  natures,  until  passion  and  opportunity  meet. 
It  was  in  the  muster  of  preparation  and  din  of  battle  the 
supreme  hour  of  our  country  came,  and  it  rang  out  that 
"  passionate  manifesto  of  revolutionary  war,"  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  that  was  a  proclamation  to  the 
world  of  a  political  birth,  in  which  history  had  been  in 
travail  for  two  hundred  years. 


The  rapid  growth  of  our  country  in  material  prosperity 
is  at  once  a  source  of  pardonable  pride  and  just  alarm. 
Wealth  is  so  formidable  in  its  power,  so  splendid  in  its 
shows,  so  instant  in  its  enjoyments,  and  so  sensuous  in  its 
appeals,  that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  the  thirst  for 
riches  is  apt  to  become  the  dominant  passion  of  a  peace- 
ful and  prosperous  people.  "  It  is  an  appetite  that  grows 
by  what  it  feeds  on,"  until  it  puts  on  the  royal  air  of 
ambition,  and  invades  and  corrupts  the  government. 
Time  was  when  wealth  was  only  dangerous  as  a  political 
power  through  the  aristocracy  of  landed  possessions  ;  but 
now  personal  property  is  so  vastly  increased,  its  forms  are 
so  multiplied,  so  protean,  often  so  impalpable,  that  its 
approaches  are  more  insidious. 

What  protection  is  there  against  this  danger  ?  None,  if 
the  spirit  of  corruption  taints  the  character  of  the  people 
themselves.  Once  government  was  esteemed  a  kind  of 
mystery,  whose  secrets  were  known  only  to  the  initiated. 
Now  the  newspaper  has  made  it  open  as  the  day.  The 
public  man  is  on  trial  every  hour  for  every  action.  To 
seek  concealment  is  to  deserve  censure.     Public  opinion 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  95 

is  in  the  end  the  real  governing  power,  and  public  opinion 
is  only  the  aggregate  of  the  intelligent  private  individual 
opinions  of  the  whole  land.  In  the  broad  daylight  of  free 
inquiry  and  full  information  the  people  are  responsible 
for  every  public  abuse. 

There  cannot  be  a  great  poem  without  a  great  poet ; 
a  great  painting  without  a  great  painter ;  a  great  building 
without  a  great  architect ;  a  great  life  without  a  great 
man.  There  cannot  be  a  great,  pure,  free  government 
without  a  great,  pure,  liberty-loving  people. 

How  are  these  virtues  to  be  maintained  ?  I  know  but 
one  school — the  school  in  which  our  fathers  were  taught. 
The  school  of  intelligent  industry,  personal  independence 
and  self-government.  The  lands  should  belong  to  the 
tillers  of  the  soil.  The  people  should  own  their  homes, 
and  live  in  the  homes  they  own.  They  should  administer 
their  local  affairs,  the  affairs  of  their  school  districts,  town, 
county,  and  municipal  governments,  with  immediate  per- 
sonal interest  and  concern.  Where  the  units  are  right, 
the  aggregate  cannot  be  wrong.  The  people  should  live 
in  constant  communion  with  those  grand  but  simple 
truths  of  morals  which  give  elevation  to  character,  purity 
to  life.  Their  beings  should  be  permeated  by  that  love 
and  reverence  for  country  which  count  any  efforts  to 
destroy  it  by  force,  to  degrade  it  by  error,  or  contaminate 
it  by  corruption,  as  treason  to  the  best  hopes  of  our  race 
and  as  a  personal  wrong. 

When  I  look  to  the  not  distant  future,  and  realize  that 
within  a  life  now  begun  our  country  will  teem  with  a 
population  of  a  hundred  million  souls,  and  reflect  that 
this  is  but  the  beginning  of  an  ever-increasing  volume 
which  is  to  pour  through  the  channel  of  our  history,  I  am 
filled  with  awe,  with  reverence,  and  fear.  Here,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  is  to  be  the  greatest  national  force  ever  felt,  in 
time.  God  guide  and  direct  this  broadening,  deepening, 
on-rushing  current  of  life  ! 


g6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  "  STATE  GRANGE,"  AT  SAN  JOSE,  OCTOBER  17,  T873. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  The  organization  of  the  farmers 
of  the  United  States  into  one  "  guild,"  if  permanently 
carried  forward  in  the  spirit  of  its  inception,  will  lead  to 
consequences  of  the  highest  importance.  I  understand 
that,  while  a  portion  of  the  work  of  the  "  Patrons  of 
Husbandry,"  like  that  of  the  Masons,  Odd  Fellows,  and 
other  similar  fraternities,  is  secret,  while  it  has  certain  de- 
grees, orders,  honorary  titles,  and  decorations,  these  are 
mere  incidents  to  its  general  objects — that  it  means  busi- 
ness, not  show — that  its  substantial  design  is  to  improve 
the  material  interests,  and  mental  and  moral  character  and 
social  privileges  of  the  members  of  the  largest  and  most 
important  industrial  interest  of  our  country.  How  far 
and  in  what  ways  this  design  shall  be  accomplished  will 
depend  upon  the  intelligent  efforts  and  patient  co-opera- 
tion of  the  members  themselves. 

There  may  come  a  time  when  all  the  observances  and 
ceremonies  with  which  societies  of  this  kind  hedge  them- 
selves in,  and  the  forms  and  symbols  with  which  they 
endeavor  to  make  their  proceedings  attractive,  will  be 
banished  by  that  severe  taste  which  loves  to  contem- 
plate truth  as  a  pure  abstraction.  But  that  time  is  very 
distant,  and  the  millennium  will  tread  close  upon  its 
coming.  Some  of  the  critics  who  are  wont  to  sneer  at  the 
official  titles  and  degrees  conferred  by  the  "  Granges," 
would  be  giddy  with  delighted  vanity  if  the  meanest  and 
most  profligate  monarch  who  ever  sat  upon  a  throne  would 
salute  them  as  "  Sir  Knight." 

While  the  soldier  follows  his  flag  with  inspiration  of 
courage,  and  will  lead  a  forlorn  hope  for  the  sake  of  a  rib- 
bon ;  while  the  parade  is  bright  with  the  glory  of  gold 
lace  ;  while  the  church  has  its  stained  windows,  its  organs, 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  97 

and  choirs ;  ministers  their  gowns,  and  bands,  and  surplice  ; 
while  every  State  occasion  or  event  has  its  prescribed 
ceremony  ;  while  colleges  and  universities  annually  pepper 
us  with  A.M.'s,  D.D.'s,  and  LL.D.'s  ;  while  everybody  who 
is  a  member  of  the  civil  government  is  "  Hon.",  and  every- 
body who  is  not  is  "  Col."  or  "  Esq."  ;  why  should  not  in- 
dustry, too,  have  its  colors,  and,  holding  its  patent  from 
Nature,  confer  its  titles  and  degrees?  Why  is  not  the 
"  Knight  of  the  Plow  "  as  honorable  as  the  "  Knight  of 
the  Garter  "  ?  or  why  may  not  the  decoration  of  "  The 
Horse  "  be  worn  as  proudly  as  that  of  the  "  Elephant  "  of 
Denmark,  or  "  Black  Eagle  "  of  Prussia  ?  Since  from  the 
constitution  of  our  nature  the  forms  and  shows  of  time  are 
a  part  of  a  man's  life  upon  earth,  we  need  not  reject  those 
which  are  images  of  peace,  the  coinage  of  civilization, 
while  clinging  to  others  which  are  emblems  of  war  or 
relics  of  barbarism. 

Whoever  has  studied  the  growth  of  our  population 
must  have  observed  an  increasing  tendency  towards  con- 
centration in  towns  and  cities,  and  that  in  the  large  cities 
— the  centres  of  capital,  commerce,  and  manufactures — 
the  increase  is  in  greater  ratio  than  in  the  smaller,  which 
depend  upon  local  trade  for  support.  It  is  noticeable, 
too,  that  cities  where  population  and  capital  are  concen- 
trated have  year  by  year  a  greater  relative  influence  in 
shaping  the  general  policy  of  government.  In  them  public 
opinion  is  massed,  and  can  be  thrown  immediately  upon 
any  given  point.  They  support  the  great  newspapers,  at- 
tract the  leading  men  and  surplus  capital.  The  great 
moneyed  interests,  and  schemes  which  have  in  cities  their 
centres,  are  never  without  special  and  plausible  advocates. 
They  organize  lobbies,  and  have  agents  and  attorneys 
before  every  important  legislative  and  congressional  com- 
mittee. Their  influence  is  thus  felt  directly  and  specifi- 
cally at  the  time  and  place  where  it  is  wanted.  To 
illustrate  :     No  capital  of  the  same  amount  in  this  country, 


98  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

perhaps  none  in  the  world,  has  in  the  same  time  averaged 
as  large  profits  upon  the  investment  as  that  of  the  national 
banks.  The  security  for  their  bills  is  Government  bonds, 
on  which  the  banks  receive  interest.  The  medium  with 
which  they  redeem  is  Government  notes.  The  number  of 
banks  is  limited,  so  they  have  a  monopoly  of  the  privileges 
they  enjoy.  Is  it  creditable  that  but  for  the  influence  of 
the  banks  themselves  and  the  public  opinion  they  have 
been  able  to  create,  the  Government  handling,  as  it  does 
annually,  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred 
million  dollars  in  gold,  and  collecting  and  disbursing  in 
gold  and  currency  every  year  an  amount  equal  to  more 
than  half  the  entire  circulating  medium  required  by  the 
business  of  the  country,  with  a  credit  based  upon  a  conti- 
nent, and  supported  by  the  patriotism  and  interest  of  the 
whole  population,  would  not  long  since  have  furnished  the 
currency  direct,  making  the  profit  on  circulation  a  com- 
mon benefit,  and  have  made  its  exchangeable  value  equal 
to  gold  ?  The  people  themselves  are  entitled  to  whatever 
profit  there  is  from  the  circulation  of  bills  or  money,  which 
could  have  no  value  but  for  the  credit  given  by  them, 
and  for  whose  redemption  their  own  bonds  are  pledged. 
The  problem  is  not  a  difficult  one,  but  its  practical  solution 
has  never  been  earnestly  attempted.  If  any  banking-house 
enjoyed  the  credit,  commanded  the  resources,  and  handled 
the  money  the  Government  does,  it  would  find  no  difficulty 
in  making  its  bills  of  par  value  with  gold.  Whenever  any 
financial  policy  is  proposed  it  is  "  Wall  Street "  that  is  heard. 
First,  because  Wall  Street,  having  a  special  interest,  will 
speak  ;  second,  because  we  are  apt  to  concede  that  Wall 
Street,  having  made  this  subject  a  specialty,  has  a  right  to 
determine.  In  truth  the  Wall  Street  interests  should  bear 
about  the  same  relation  to  the  industrial  pursuits  of  the 
country  that  the  hands  on  the  dial  do  to  the  machinery  of 
a  watch.  If  the  main-spring  and  wheels  are  all  right,  you 
can  easily  adjust  the  hands  to  register  the  movement. 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  99 

Our  tariff  represents  no  general  principle  of  policy 
either  of  "  protection,"  "  incidental  protection,"  or  "  reve- 
nue only,"  but  is  a  patchwork  clearly  disclosing  just 
how  far  each  special  interest  seeking  protection  was  able 
to  make  itself  heard. 

If  there  is  any  principle  of  governmental  policy  upon 
which  all  party  platforms  and  public  speakers,  candidates, 
office-holders,  and  newspapers  agree,  it  is  that  the  public 
lands  should  be  held  for  actual  settlers.  If  that  sentiment 
could  be  put  to  a  viva  voce  vote,  one  universal  "  Ay ! " 
would  go  up  from  sea  to  sea. 

But  we  have  had  land-bounties  to  soldiers  for  military 
services,  land-scrip  to  agricultural  colleges  for  educational 
purposes,  land-scrip  for  the  extinguishment  of  Indian 
titles,  swamp  lands  to  States  for  reclamation  purposes, 
land-grants  to  railroads — and  somehow  these  do  pass  into 
the  hands  of  speculators,  for  the  most  part, — and  the  charm 
of  that  very  musical  motto  in  American  politics,  "  Homes 
for  the  homeless,"  dies  away  on  the  ear. 

I  instance  these  illustrations  not  to  find  fault,  but  to 
show  how  much  and  how  naturally  legislation  is  influenced 
and  directed  by  the  immediate  interest  which  presses  its 
claims  at  time,  place,  and  occasion.  One  positive  will  ef- 
fects more  than  an  army  of  neutrals.  One  man  who  knows 
what  he  wants,  and  seeks  it,  will  accomplish  more  than  a 
hundred  who  don't  want  him  to  get  it,  but  who  resolutely 
stay  at  home  and  say  nothing  about  it  until  it  is  too  late, 
and  then  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  grumbling. 

What  we  desire  and  hope  for  from  the  Granges  upon 
this  subject  is  that  they  will  give  shape,  consistency,  and 
definiteness  to  that  diffusive  public  opinion  which  now, 
unorganized,  is  heard  rather  in  criticism  than  in  direction, 
and  that  law-makers  and  public  men  shall  realize  at  least 
that  there  is  a  reserve  force  which,  though  slow  of  speech, 
will  speak,  and  that  when  private  and  special  interests  are 
clamorous  it  is  safe  to  wait  until  those  general  interests 


100  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

can  be  considered,  which  are  often  the  first  to  suffer  and 
the  last  to  be  heard. 

One  subject  will  doubtless  be  soon  presented  for  legis- 
lation of  the  greatest  importance  to  a  large  body  of  the  • 
farmers  of  this  State,  and  on  which  they  ought  to  be 
heard — that  of  irrigation. 

In  some  districts  where  irrigation  is  now  regarded  as  the 
only  assurance  of  a  good  crop  of  grain,  deep  plowing  and 
summer-fallowing  might  prove  cheaper,  more  healthful, 
and  about  as  successful.  This  can  be  determined  by  care- 
ful experiments  and  collection  of  facts.  It  will  certainly  be 
a  public  calamity  if  under  the  operation  of  State  laws  the 
sources  of  the  supply  of  water  necessary  for  irrigation 
should  pass  into  the  possession  of  private  parties.  The 
mere  statement  of  the  possibility  of  a  water  monopoly  is  a 
stigma  upon  our  law.  Whoever  has  lived  in  the  mines  must 
have  observed  that  the  ditch  owners  could  own  the  mines  if 
they  desired  to.  The  unrestricted  control  of  the  waters  nec- 
essary for  irrigation  would  confer  the  same  power  over  lands. 

If  a  general  system  of  irrigation  should  be  projected, 
the  work  to  be  constructed  and  managed  by  the  State,  it 
is  possible  that  a  great  deal  of  work  would  be  done  which 
would  prove  unnecessary  and  unprofitable;  some  portions 
of  the  State  would  be  taxed  for  improvements  in  which 
they  had  no  interest,  and  the  mining  districts,  to  which 
water  is  as  essential  as  to  the  farming,  would  have  a  right 
to  demand  that  the  system  should  be  extended  to  them. 

Is  it  not  possible  to  divide  the  State  into  irrigation  dis- 
tricts, allowing  each  to  determine  the  question  for  itself, 
and  giving  to  each  acre  a  vested  right  to  its  pro  rata  of 
the  water  supply,  and  conferring  upon  each  district  the 
power  to  condemn  the  water  rights  which  are  necessary 
for  its  own  irrigation  ? 

Another  question  in  connection  with  this  subject  will 
be  the  practicability  of  using  the  same  canals  for  purposes 
of  irrigation  and  transportation. 


OR  A  TIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  10 1 

It  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  at  the  outset  the 
State  should  adopt  the  best  system,  and  too  much  care 
cannot  be  given  to  the  arrangement  of  its  details.  The 
report  of  the  Commission  of  Engineers  appointed  by  the 
General  Government  to  make  a  reconnoissance  of  the 
State  will  doubtless  furnish  facts  of  great  value  in  arriving 
at  a  correct  conclusion.  I  trust  the  farmers,  who  are  most 
interested,  will  give  the  matter  their  patient,  careful,  and 
intelligent  attention,  so  that  we  shall  have  the  benefit  of 
full  discussion  and  free  interchange  of  opinion.  I  instance 
this  as  a  striking  case ;  but  if  the  Granges  shall  succeed  in 
giving  the  affairs  of  local  government  that  consequence 
and  attention  to  which  they  are  entitled,  they  will  do  an 
incalculable  good. 

We  seem  as  a  people  to  have  a  quadrennial  attack  of 
insanity  over  a  presidential  election.  How  we  do  "  save 
the  country "  with  speeches  and  processions,  and  the 
burning  of  tar  and  turpentine,  the  blaze  of  Roman  candles 
and  sky-rockets,  and  the  explosion  of  gunpowder.  Distant 
be  the  day  when  the  election  of  a  President  of  the  United 
States  shall  not  be  considered  a  matter  of  importance. 
That  is  the  occasion  when  a  sense  of  the  unity  of  our 
country  is  made  most  vivid  and  real  to  us  all.  But  the 
election  of  Supervisors,  School  Directors,  and  local  officers 
are  often  of  more  immediate  concern  to  our  individual 
well-being.  Good  roads,  schools,  correct  administration 
of  justice  in  affairs  of  daily  life,  taxes  imposed  only  for 
common  benefit  and  correctly  expended,  are  things  which 
touch  us  where  we  live — are  real  every  day.  Local  offi- 
cers, too,  who  are  amenable  to  the  criticism  of  their 
neighbors,  should  also  have  the  benefit  of  their  intelligent 
and  friendly  counsel,  so  that  local  administration  shall  be 
directed  as  far  as  possible  by  the  common  neighborhood 
sentiment  of  what  is  right.  There  is  a  homely  proverb  : 
"  Take  care  of  the  pennies  and  the  pounds  will  take  care 
of  themselves."     If  the  local  affairs  of  our  country  are 


102  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

wisely  administered  the  general  administration  will  not  be 
far  wrong.  Indeed,  government  is  a  growth  from  within, 
and  the  true  character  of  any  government  depends  upon 
the  local  institutions  of'  the  country,  and  these  in  last  re- 
sort upon  the  average  character  of  the  people  themselves. 
France  finds  that  exterior  changes  in  government  are 
ephemeral,  often  only  changes  of  name,  because  local  in- 
stitutions and  interior  administration  remain  the  same. 
These  are  the  springs  and  wheels,  and  the  clock  strikes 
the  hours  wherever  the  hands  may  point.  If  by  constant 
attention  in  each  neighborhood  we  can  succeed  in  getting 
our  public  shools  as  nearly  perfect  as  possible,  we  shall 
take  a  bond  of  fate  for  the  security  of  free  institutions. 
Emerson  says  our  New  England  ancestors  discovered  that 
the  pomps  and  shows  of  royalty,  with  horse-guards  and 
foot-guards,  big  wigs  and  little  wigs,  knights  of  the  bed- 
chamber, keepers  of  the  hounds,  etc.,  were  unnecessary. 
Perhaps  they  were  too  poor  to  afford  them.  "  Selectmen  " 
would  answer  the  purpose  and  were  cheaper — hence  the 
democratic  principle,  and  representative  republican  gov- 
ernment. We  must  keep  the  sources  pure  if  we  would 
have  the  stream  clear,  and  not  allow  republican  shows  to 
destroy  republican  simplicity. 

I  have  referred  to  the  comparative  over-growth  of 
cities.  One  of  the  objects,  I  observe,  of  the  Granges,  is 
to  simplify  the  machinery  of  exchange,  to  dispense  with 
middlemen  as  far  as  practicable,  and  bring  producers 
and  consumers  more  nearly  together.  In  the  degree 
in  which  they  shall  proceed  in  this  they  will  check  one  of 
the  tendencies  towards  the  concentration  of  capital  and 
population.  This  increase  of  city  population,  and  the 
aggregation  of  capital,  is  not  confined  to  the  United 
States,  but  is  common  to  the  civilized  world.  London  is 
growing  more  rapidly  than  ever  before,  and  the  growth 
of  Berlin  in  the  past  few  years  is  as  great  a  marvel  as  that 
of  Chicago.     The  causes  must  be  sought  in  principles  of 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  103 

universal  operation.  At  one  period  of  the  world's  history 
men  gather  in  cities,  walled  towns,  for  mutual  protection. 
At  another,  cities  were  great  political  capitals,  law-givers, 
in  fact,  making  vast  provinces  and  distant  countries  tribu- 
taries to  their  wealth  and  power  by  conquest.  Now 
cities  attain  their  importance  as  the  centres  and  capitals 
of  money,  manufactures,  and  commerce.  Think  for  one 
moment  how  vastly  their  importance  as  mere  money 
centres  has  been  increased  by  the  introduction  of  national 
funded  debts.  The  funded  debt  of  the  United  States  is 
$1,738,245,500;  that  of  the  various  States  $324,747,959 ; 
of  counties  and  towns,  $429,075,548  ;  the  last  figures  are 
from  unofficial  statistical  tables  and  are  probably  largely 
under.  The  floating  debts  of  the  general  government, 
and  of  the  States,  counties,  and  cities  would  add  more 
than  $800,000,000  to  this  sum  of  our  public  indebtedness. 
The  funded  debt  of  the  railroads  in  the  United  States 
is  $1,206,615,061.  The  total  debts  of  the  nations  of  the 
world,  compiled  on  the  basis  of  Hubner's  statistical  table, 
and  probably  embracing  only  such  as  are  quotable  at 
the  London  Exchange,  is  $18,700,599,758 — more  than 
quadruple  the  gold  and  silver  coin  in  the  world.  Add  to 
that  already  inconceivable  sum  the  debts  of  states, 
counties,  and  municipalities,  and  we  become  lost  in  a  be- 
wildering maze  of  figures.  The  interest  upon  this  vast 
sum  is  an  annual  tribute  paid  by  the  world's  industry  to 
the  world's  moneyed  centres  and  capitals.  What  a  happy 
holiday  the  world  would  enjoy,  what  a  year  of  jubilee,  if 
it  could  get  out  of  debt.  Nearly  all  the  vast  sums  I  have 
recapitulated  are  the  price  of  wars,  and  must  be  paid  from 
the  accumulations  of  peace.  There  is  no  escape.  No 
nation  can  afford  to  incur  the  disgrace  of  repudiation. 
Capital,  when  invested  in  machinery  and  mate-iai  im- 
provements, adds  to  productive  capacity  and  to  the  sum 
of  human  happiness,  but  no  "  national  debt  is  a  national 
blessing,"  and  their  vast  aggregate  is  a  silent,   constant 


104  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

drain  on  the  world's  productive  industry.    It  is  that  much 
of  the  world's  "  stock  in  trade  "  held  by  a  "  dead  hand." 

About  a  hundred  years  ago  Watt  invented  the  con- 
densing steam-engine,  which  has  revolutionized  the  arts 
of  peace  in  as  great  a  degree  as  the  invention  of  gun- 
powder did  the  art  of  war.  So  much  has  it  added  to 
productive  capacity,  that  it  has  been  estimated  that  with 
it,  and  the  inventions  to  which  it  gave  rise,  the  creative 
power  of  Great  Britain  in  the  arts  of  civilized  life  would 
be  as  great  as  that  of  the  world  without.  One  immediate 
effect  of  this  and  almost  every  other  great  invention, 
however,  is  to  strengthen  the  strong,  to  make  capital 
a  more  powerful  element  in  production.  Hargrave's 
spinning-jenny,  Arkwright's  spinning-frame,  Cartwright's 
power  loom,  and  the  methods  of  puddling  and  rolling 
iron,  which  were  nearly  contemporary  with  the  steam- 
engine,  with  the  introduction  of  cotton  as  a  cheap  textile, 
and  the  application  of  steam  to  transportation  by  land 
and  water,  have  completely  modified  the  methods  of  in- 
dustry and  exchange,  and  the  currents  of  population. 
Before  that,  personal  skill  was  the  mechanic's  best  capital ; 
now  personal  mechanical  skill  is  worth  comparatively 
little,  without  the  use  of  large  capital.  It  cannot  com- 
pete with  machinery.  Before  that,  mechanical  trades 
were  carried  on  as  independent  pursuits,  by  men  who 
learned  them  as  apprentices,  to  practise  them  as  masters, 
with  such  means  as  they  could  severally  accumulate.  In 
fact  mechanical  labor  strictly  has  been  largely  supplanted 
by  manufacturing  labor.  When  Adam  Smith  wrote  of 
the  division  of  labor  as  a  cause  of  increased  production, 
he  little  dreamed  of  the  minute  subdivisions  to  which 
the  principle  would  be  carried.  Before  the  invention  of 
pins  any  of  our  ancestors  could  gather  thorns  or  make  a 
skewer  ;  now  a  pin,  I  believe,  passes  through  a  dozen 
hands  before  it  is  ready  for  the  cushion,  but  it  is  cheaper 
to  buy  it  than  to  go  to  the  woods  for  a  thorn,  or  even  for 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  105 

a  Yankee  to  whittle  a  skewer.  Outside  of  agriculture 
every  one  who  produces  is  now  working  to  supply  the 
wants  of  others,  and  drawing  upon  the  labor  of  hundreds 
of  others  to  supply  his  own.  Now,  too,  it  is  very  seldom 
that  any  man  produces  from  raw  material  an  article  that 
any  one  wants.  He  only  contributes  to  it  in  some  minute 
degree — and  the  whole  is  the  joint  production  of  many 
hands.  This  makes  exchange  more  necessary  and  fre- 
quent. All  articles  being  for  sale  seek  common  centres — 
places  where  buyers  can  purchase  everything  they  want. 
The  volume  of  commerce  is  thus  wonderfully  increased, 
its  machinery  exceedingly  complex  and  delicate.  These 
are  great  centripetal  forces  which  constantly  draw  popula- 
tion and  capital  to  those  vast  human  hives,  modern  cities. 
They  are  social  forces  far  more  powerful  than  any  legisla- 
tive enactment. 

If  any  of  you  grew  up,  as  I  did,  near  the  frontier,  you 
will  have  observed  the  operation  of  these  forces  in  your 
own  experience.  Thirty-five  years  ago,  in  what  was  then 
the  "  Far  West,"  almost  everything  consumed  on  a  farm 
was  raised  on  it.  There  was  some  barter.  Butter  and 
eggs  were  exchanged  for  sugar  and  coffee.  Tea  was  a 
luxury,  kept  for  cases  of  sickness,  a  few  such  state  occa- 
sions as  the  visit  of  the  minister,  or  of  that  most  august 
official — in  those  days — the  circuit  judge.  Wool  came 
from  the  sheep's  back  into  the  house,  and  never  left  it 
until  it  went  out  on  the  backs  of  the  boys  and  girls.  It 
was  carded,  spun,  and  woven  by  hand.  The  flax  went 
from  the  field  to  the  breaker,  from  breaker  to  hackle  and 
loom.  At  the  farm  I  best  remember  the  trough  was  still 
in  the  farmyard,  and  the  remains  of  the  vat  were  to  be 
seen,  where  not  many  years  before  deer-skins  and  cow- 
hides had  been  tanned,  and  the  lap-stone  was  still  kept, 
which  had  been  in  family  use  for  making  shoes  from  home- 
tanned  leather.  The  farms  where  more  than  one  "  hired 
man  "  was  kept  were  rarer  than  those  that  had    none. 


106  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Farming  implements  were  of  the  simplest  kind.  I 
remember  the  first  threshing-machine,  a  horse-power, 
brought  into  our  neighborhood.  It  made  its  appearance 
about  the  same  time  the  first  piano  came  into  the  village. 
I  think  both  were  generally  regarded  as  evidences  of 
extravagant  innovations,  likely  to  break  their  owners. 
All  this  has  been  changed.  The  introduction  of  improved 
agricultural  implements,  which  substantially  dates  back 
scarcely  twenty-five  years,  has  a  tendency  to  bring  about 
the  same  kind  of  changes  in  farming  that  labor-saving 
machinery  has  effected  on  the  mechanical  arts.  The  gang- 
plow,  the  reaper,  the  header,  threshing-machines,  enabling 
one  owner  to  cultivate  more  acres,  increase  the  size  of 
farms,  and  make  the  use  of  capital  a  more  essential  con- 
dition of  success. 

Now  almost  everything  produced  on  the  farm  is  sold, 
almost  everything  consumed  in  the  house  is  bought. 
Sometimes  the  markets  are  distant,  as  Liverpool  now 
fixes  the  price  of  wheat  in  Santa  Clara.  The  farmer 
necessarily  becomes  interested  in  the  laws  of  trade, 
methods  of  exchange,  and  price  of  transportation.  It  is 
important  he  should  know  what  kind  of  weather  they  had 
in  England  at  harvest,  how  much  wheat  Russia  can  spare, 
how  many  ships  are  on  their  way  to  his  nearest  port.  It 
is  important  that  the  friction  in  handling  what  he  has  to 
sell  and  what  he  must  buy,  should  be  as  light  as  possible, 
and  that  he  should  not  be  taxed  in  extra  profits  to  pay 
losses  by  bad  debts.  Now  he  desires  to  know  about 
where  the  money  is  to  come  from  "  to  move  the  crops." 
He  needs  more  capital  at  some  times  than  at  others, 
wants  banking  accommodations  and  low  interest.  As 
moneyed  interests,  manufacturing  interests,  and  commer- 
cial interests,  from  the  nature  of  their  transactions,  have 
their  capital  and  pivotal  centres,  and  as  from  the  nature 
of  their  pursuits  agricultural  interests  have  not,  but  are  as 
necessarily  diffused  as  the  others  are  concentrated,  it  is 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  10 J 

eminently  proper  they  should  organize  for  their  own  ad- 
vancement and  protection.  Farmers  living  in  compara- 
tive isolation  ought  to  feel  that  there  is  a  net-work  of 
sympathy  connecting  each  with  all.  This  want  the  institu- 
tion of  the  Patrons  of  Husbandry,  through  State  and  sub- 
ordinate granges,  is  intended  to  supply.  The  specific 
objects  it  proposes  will  require  patient  thought  and  some- 
times careful  experiment,  but  it  can  hardly  fail  to  contrib- 
ute to  social  enjoyment,  to  the  diffusion  of  practical  in- 
formation, to  a  cultivation  of  a  feeling  of  esprit  dn  corps, 
and  that  sense  of  honor  which  results  from  pride  of  pur- 
suit and  mutual  pledge.  During  the  panic  in  New  York 
the  associated  banks  for  some  time  received  and  paid  out 
as  money  certified  checks  of  each  other.  The  word  of  a 
member  of  a  Grange  should  be  sterling  in  every  transac- 
tion, and  pass  current  as  the  coin  of  the  realm.  Not  only 
his  fields,  but  his  life,  should  be  made  fruitful  by  his  as- 
sociation. His  presence  at  home  should  be  an  atmos- 
phere of  peace,  and  his  influence  among  his  neighbors  as 
fragrant  as  an  orchard  in  bloom. 

DECORATION  DAY  ORATION. 

DELIVERED   AT   SACRAMENTO,    1 877. 

The  comrades  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  have 
performed  their  solemn  rites,  and  the  sun  has  set  upon  a 
day  sacred  to  the  dead,  the  memory  of  whom  can  never 
die.  The  time  is  aptly  chosen,  this  bridal  of  the  spring 
and  summer  for  a  floral  tribute  to  the  men  who  died  for 
man.  It  is  no  idle  ceremony.  To-day  a  great  people, 
throughout  this  broad  land,  stood  uncovered  in  the  silent 
presence  of  three  hundred  thousand  dead,  whose  lives 
were  given  as  a  ransom  for  Union  and  liberty. 

From  him,  the  martyr-President,  by  whose  death 
humanity  was  bereaved,  to  the  humblest  soldier  who  fills 


108  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

an  unknown  grave,  there  is  room  in  the  American  heart 
for  all. 

No  great  cause  has  ever  been  established  without  con- 
flict of  battle.  Every  great  country  contains  the  dust 
of  heroes,  and  is  consecrated  by  it.  Humanity  claims 
them  all  in  every  clime  and  land.  There  are  no  nation- 
alities, races,  or  divisions  in  the  silent  kingdom  of  the 
dead. 

The  ceremonies  of  this  day  would  be  worse  than  use- 
less, they  would  be  an  impious  mockery,  if  they  served  to 
perpetuate  the  passions  and  animosities  which  are  neces- 
sarily engendered  by  a  great  civil  war.  To  do  this  would 
be  to  defeat  the  great  object  for  which  the  war  was 
fought. 

Free  institutions  cannot  be  built  upon  hatred,  or  suc- 
cessfully administered  by  violence,  or  in  the  spirit  of  con- 
quest. A  union  maintained  by  force  must  exercise 
despotic  power.  The  obedience  of  fear  is  the  sullen  sub- 
mission of  subjects,  not  the  willing  allegiance  of  free  men. 
A  union  preserved  by  interest  would  be  a  commercial 
partnership,  for  mutual  profit.  It  could  not  confront 
great  danger,  endure  great  sacrifice,  or  rise  to  the  great 
heights  of  duty.  The  life  of  a  great  free  nation  can  flow 
from  no  such  sources.  The  bands  which  bind  a  free  peo- 
ple into  that  mysterious  entity,  a  nation,  can  neither  be 
of  steel,  nor  of  gold,  of  despotic  power,  nor  sordid  inter- 
est. They  must  be  purer,  more  potent,  more  vital  even 
than  authority  of  law.  There  must  be  mutual  love,  re- 
ciprocal good-will,  a  common  object  and  aspiration,  a 
common  sentiment  of  justice  and  sense  of  equality  and 
brotherhood.  Each  citizen  must  feel  that  he  is  part  of 
his  country  ;  his  country  a  part  of  him  ;  that  he  has  a 
share  in  every  portion  of  it,  in  all  that  it  has  been  or  is, 
©r  is  to  be.  Unless  we  can  have  this  sentiment  pervading 
our  common  country,  and  making  it  the  common  country 
of  us  all,  our  union,  while  it  exists,  will  be  a  mere  mechani- 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  109 

cal  dovetailing — a  political  patchwork,  not  a  corporeal 
whole,  animated  by  an  incarnate  spirit. 

You  may  bound  your  country  on  the  map,  describe  its 
geographical  divisions,  its  soil,  its  climate  and  productions, 
its  political  institutions,  social  manners  and  customs,  its 
history — but  there  is  something  which  escapes  description, 
which  can  neither  be  defined  nor  analyzed  nor  represented. 
Our  party  may  not  be  in  power ;  the  laws  may  be  imper- 
fect ;  their  administration  unsatisfactory  ;  office  seekers 
may  disgust ;  office-holders  betray  ;  the  struggle  for  bread 
may  be  hard  ;  the  journey  of  life  may  be  wearisome  ;  be- 
hind all  these  is  the  pure  presence  of  our  country,  a  bright, 
stainless,  incorruptible  ideal.  When  that  ceases  to  live  in 
the  heart  we  are  without  a  country.  Whoever  dims  or 
defaces  it  is  an  enemy  to  his  country  ;  whoever  is  not  ex- 
alted by  it  is  an  enemy  to  himself. 

This  day  is  taken  out  of  common  life  and  consecrated 
by  solemn  religious  observance.  Let  no  feeling  of  hatred 
profane  it.  To-day  bereaved  families  gather  in  broken 
circles  around  altar  and  fireside.  To-day  skeleton  regi- 
ments muster  whose  full  ranks  were  thinned  by  battle. 
To-day  our  country  mourns  and  rejoices — mourns  over 
her  children  fallen,  and  rejoices  that  she  had  heroes  for 
children  ;  rejoices  that  she  has  trodden  the  wine-press,  and 
exchanged  the  garments  dripping  with  blood  for  the  white, 
shining  raiment  of  peace. 

To-day  all  Europe  is  an  armed  camp.  From  the  Irish 
Sea  to  the  Caspian,  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Mediterranean, 
there  is  the  muster  of  preparation,  and  all  the  land  throbs 
as  with  a  coming  earthquake.  Let  us  be  thankful  that 
the  shadow  of  the  black  cloud  falls  not  upon  us  ;  and  let 
us  crown  the  peace  that  blesses  us,  with  unity  and  con- 
cord, that  her  sweet  presence  may  abide  with  us  forever. 

The  experience  of  our  country  is  novel  in  human  affairs. 
No  nation  has  ever  before  survived  a  conflict  like  that 
through  which  ours  has  passed,  and  its  ultimate  effect 


110  NE  W TON  BOO  TH. 

upon  the  institutions  of  this  is  by  no  means  fully  dis- 
closed. We  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  the  war  as 
civil.  It  was  rather  sectional.  In  the  border  States, 
particularly  in  Missouri,  and  somewhat  in  Kentucky, 
West  Virginia,  and  Maryland,  it  had  many  of  the  features 
of  civil  war,  where  opposing  forces  in  arms  are  animated 
by  personal  hatred,  but  as  a  whole  it  was  a  war  between 
sections,  each  equal  in  extent,  population,  and  resources 
to  an  empire. 

The  war  was  inevitable.  Institutions  to  be  permanent 
must  be  consistent.  They  cannot  unite  antagonistic  prin- 
ciples successfully.  China,  with  her  fixed  type  of  charac- 
ter, seems  to  be  unmovable.  Wherever  intellect  is  active, 
there  is  political  movement.  Stagnation  is  death.  In 
every  civilized  society  the  movement  is  towards  despotism 
or  liberty.  Napoleon  comprehended  this  when  he  said 
Europe  would  become  Cossack  or  Republican.  Anarchy 
is  the  worst  of  evils.  Either  the  mass  of  men  require  the 
mastery  of  force,  or  individual  liberty  will  evolve  the 
highest  social  order. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  founded  on  the 
doctrine  of  equal  rights,  recognized  and  protected  the 
existence  of  slavery.  Slavery  was  an  institution  old  as 
history,  stronger  than  law,  the  type  and  exemplar  of  the 
absolute  dominance  of  force.  The  chariot  of  the  sun 
could  not  be  drawn  by  the  courser  of  the  night. 

Seward  and  Lincoln,  in  their  annunciation  of  the  "  irre- 
pressible conflict,"  and  "  house  divided  against  itself,"  were 
little  in  advance  of  popular  presentment.  The  war  cloud 
which  burst  in  terror  had  been  gathering  in  darkness  from 
the  foundation  of  the  republic. 

The  lessons  of  war  are  terrible.  It  can  only  be  justified 
by  an  awful  necessity,  only  consecrated  by  a  righteous 
cause.  That  war  should  have  been  made  one  of  the  con- 
ditions of  progress  is  one  of  the  mysterious  dispensations 
of  human  life.     If  war  be  merely  a  question  of  brute  force, 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  Ill 

serve  only  to  give  vent  to  the  passions  of  hatred  and 
destructiveness,  it  is  an  unmixed,  unmitigated,  indescriba- 
ble evil  and  sin.  Behold  two  armies — facing  each  other 
with  all  the  dread  enginery  of  death.  Mass  hurled  against 
mass,  the  one  object  of  each  to  destroy  human  life — what 
is  this  but  wholesale  murder  ?  Let  each  man  in  the  ser- 
ried hosts  believe  that  he  is  fighting  for  the  right,  that 
the  fate  of  country,  of  humanity,  is  staked  upon  the  issue, 
the  scene  is  translated  to  the  sublimest  heroism.  War  is 
not  a  religious  exercise,  a  Sunday-school  lesson,  or  holi- 
day pastime.  It  takes  men  as  it  finds  them,  society  as  it 
is,  and  seeks  to  organize  all  passions,  thoughts,  energies, 
every  capacity  of  human  nature  into  physical  force. 

In  no  war  ever  fought  in  history,  did  force  ever  more 
truly  represent  sentiment  than  that  through  which  we 
have  passed.  In  none  has  each  soldier  upon  both  sides 
fought  from  more  sincere  personal  conviction,  and  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  result.  This  redeems  it  from  physical 
grossness,  or  intellectual  strategy  and  struggle  for  advan- 
tage, and  makes  it  one  of  the  great  moral  conflicts  of  all 
time. 

I  am  aware  that  the  war  as  it  progressed  was  an  edu- 
cator of  public  sentiment,  a  terrible  teacher  whose  lessons 
were  written  in  blood  and  read  in  the  light  of  battles.  Its 
inevitable  result,  the  secret  moving  springs  in  human 
nature  behind  it,  were  at  first  far  better  understood  at  the 
South  than  at  the  North.  The  South  was  earlier  more 
terribly  in  earnest  than  the  North — more  logical,  consis- 
tent, and  united. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  sentiment  which  sus- 
tained slavery  as  an  existing  institution,  though  so  univer- 
sal, was  scarcely  stronger  as  a  preponderating  power  in  the 
South  than  in  the  North.  Many  of  you  can  remember 
when  it  required  more  personal  courage  to  question  the 
morality  of  slavery  in  this  community  than  it  did  in  many 
parts  of  Maryland,  Tennessee,  or   Missouri — almost   as 


112  NE  WTON  BOO  TH. 

much  as  in  Charleston  or  New  Orleans  at  the  same  time. 
Some  of  us  can  remember  when  the  lives  of  many  of  the 
purest  and  best  men  then  living  were  endangered  in  Bos- 
ton for  proclaiming  anti-slavery  sentiments,  and  when 
there  was  not  a  nook  or  corner  in  all  this  broad  land 
where  the  anti-slavery  agitator  was  safe  from  violence. 

If  Lincoln's  first  call  for  seventy-five  thousand  volun- 
teers had  gone  forth  with  the  proclamation  that  the  war, 
if  prosecuted,  would  last  four  years,  arm  two  million  men, 
destroy  half  a  million  lives,  cost  five  thousand  million 
dollars,  enlist  white  and  black  men  in  the  same  armies, 
and  result  in  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  giving  the  right 
of  suffrage  and  absolute  equality  of  all  civil  rights  and 
political  privileges  to  the  blacks,  how  many  do  you  sup- 
pose would  have  answered  ?  Not  enough  to  have  officered 
the  regiments.  Those  who  would  have  been  willing  to 
fight  for  such  an  object  would  have  considered  the  con- 
test as  absolutely  hopeless.  These  are  incidents  and 
results,  and  the  truth  of  history  justifies  the  statement 
that  they  were  not  foreseen  in  the  beginning.  If  they 
had  been,  the  great  mass  of  those  whose  lives  were  sacri- 
ficed to  attain  the  great  end  which  consecrated  the  sacri- 
fice would  have  started  back  in  blank  amazement,  blind 
incredulity,  or  open  revolt. 

Instinct  of  patriotism  answered  to  the  first  call. 
Event  succeeded  event,  danger  culminated  into  peril, 
until  that  dire  emergency  which  borders  on  despair,  made 
emancipation  the  weapon,  not  the  supreme  object  of  the 
war.  Millions  rejoiced  in  the  freedom  of  the  slave  in 
1863,  who  would  have  derided  it  as  the  dream  of  a  vision- 
ary, or  opposed  it  as  the  scheme  of  a  disturber  three  years 
before.  Let  us  not,  then,  as  a  people,  Northern  people, 
exalt  our  honor,  and  clothe  ourselves  in  the  garments  of 
proscriptive  self-righteousness,  for  we  are  but  lately  de- 
livered from  the  bondage  of  this  death — our  deliverance 
came  in  the  baptism  of  fire,  and  was  from  the  thraldom 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  II3 

of  an  idea  not  the  bondage  of  a  fact,  from  the  shadow  of 
the  substance  not  the  thing  itself.  It  was  not  our  slaves 
who  were  emancipated,  not  our  social  economy  dis- 
turbed. 

It  was  fortunate  for  our  country,  fortunate  for  humanity, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  at  the  head  of  our  councils 
during  this  awful  struggle.  There  have  lately  been  at- 
tempts by  unfavorable  comparison  to  decry  his  ability 
and  disparage  the  part  he  played  in  the  great  drama  ;  at- 
tempts to  make  it  appear  that  he  was  a  mere  figure-head 
to  the  Administration  over  which  he  presided — little  com- 
prehending the  events  which  swept  him  onward  in  resist- 
less current.  His  humility  and  self-abnegation  have  been 
ascribed  to  weakness,  his  generosity  to  his  great  co- 
workers to  a  feeling  of  dependence.  His  tenderness  of 
human  life,  his  anxious  sense  of  justice,  have  been  mis- 
taken for  irresolution,  and  his  broad  sympathies  with  all 
humanity  for  a  lack  of  intense  conviction  or  definite  aim. 
The  simplicity  of  his  character  deceives  those  who  con- 
found mystery  with  greatness.  In  all  his  life  Lincoln 
never  attempted  to  appear  wiser  or  better  than  he  was. 
He  never  clothed  common-place  thought  in  lofty  phrase 
to  dazzle  by  the  glitter  of  words.  He  indulged  in  no 
ominous  silence  to  magnify  by  concealment.  His  debate 
with  Douglas  introduced  him  to  the  American  people  as 
the  equal  of  the  first  political  athlete  of  his  time.  His 
homely  anecdotes,  apt  as  Franklin's  maxims,  were  the  ex- 
pressed logic  of  common  life,  the  wisdom  of  familiar 
speech.  His  speech  at  Gettysburg  arose  to  the  loftiest 
heights  of  eloquence,  and  associated  his  name  forever  with 
that  of  Pericles.  His  second  inaugural,  read  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  events,  has  the  tone  and  solemnity  of 
prophecy.  In  all  public  action  his  single  aim  was  to  ac- 
complish the  greatest  attainable  good  from  the  oppor- 
tunity of  every  passing  hour  and  event.  If  he  marched 
abreast  of  the  people,  and  said  "let  us  go  forward,"  rather 


114  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

than  "  come  up  here,"  he  had  more  influence  with  the 
people,  because  he  was  flesh  of  their  flesh,  bone  of  their 
bone — he  was  American — American  in  fibre  and  blood, 
brain  and  heart.  He  scorned  the  idea  that  common 
people,  "  plain  people,"  in  his  own  significant  expression, 
were  pottery  and  that  he  was  porcelain.  That  any  man  was 
porcelain,  or  better  than  the  clay  of  common  humanity. 
His  simplicity  of  character,  his  directness  of  purpose,  his 
unselfish  moral  elevation,  and  severe  sense  of  justice  often 
translated  his  intellect  into  the  higher  regions  of  inspira- 
tion and  prophecy,  but  his  strength  was  of  the  people 
from  whose  loins  he  sprang,  whose  sufferings,  labors,  trials, 
and  aspirations  had  been  his  life-long  experience.  His 
sympathies  were  broad  enough  to  take  in  both  the  slave 
and  his  master,  and  he  realized  that  both  were  the  slaves 
of  fate  and  circumstance  which  neither  could  control. 
Both  were  bound  by  the  same  chain.  With  him  indig- 
nation at  the  wrong  never  became  hatred  of  the  wrong- 
doer. He  was  "  a  man  and  nothing  human  was  alien  to 
him."  We  know  now,  that  while  he  bore  upon  his 
shoulders  the  burden  of  a  continent,  his  heart  bled  with 
a  secret  sorrow,  but  no  word  of  refusing  escaped  him,  no 
act  of  weakness  betrayed  him.  He  suffered  in  silence 
until  death  placed  his  name  in  the  roll  of  martyrs.  The 
instincts  of  humanity  are  right,  its  judgments  seldom  re- 
versed. To-day  no  name  of  mortal  is  so  tenderly  loved 
by  so  many  loving  hearts  as  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

But  our  grateful  reverence  and  love  is  not  alone  for  the 
great  who  lived  in  the  eye  of  the  world  and  have  been 
crowned  by  history.  Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  another, 
whose  name  has  no  place  in  history,  and  is  only  cherished 
by  the  hearts  that  were  bereaved  by  his  death.  He  was 
an  humble  private,  a  representative  of  many  whose  names 
were  borne  only  on  the  company  rolls  and  in  the  list  of 
"  killed  and  wounded."  No  hope  of  glory  called  him  to 
the  field,  nor  spirit  of  adventure  led  him.     He  had  never 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  115 

studied  the  constitution  of  his  country,  and  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  nice  adjustment  of  State  and  national  powers. 
Danger  quickened  his  instinctive  patriotism  into  ardent 
love  and  sublime  sense  of  duty.  He  left  the  home  of  his 
childhood  to  join  the  long  and  wearisome  march.  He 
languished  in  hospital  away  from  mother's  and  sister's 
tenderness  and  care.  He  stood  his  lonely  sentinel  watch 
in  the  long  night,  in  the  beating  of  the  winter  storm,  while 
thoughts  of  the  glowing  fireside  of  home  and  the  sweet 
voice  of  love  were  in  his  heart.  Sense  of  duty  alone  sus- 
tained him,  consciousness  of  duty  discharged  only  requited 
him.  He  fell  in  the  impetuous  charge.  The  shout  of 
victory  did  not  reach  his  ear.  His  name  disappeared  from 
company  roll ;  he  was  missed  from  the  camp-fire  of  his 
comrades — from  the  triumphal  return.  In  the  heart  of 
love  there  is  an  aching  void  for  which  earth  has  no  solace, 
that  time  cannot  fill.  This  man  has  his  counterpart  in 
heroism,  in  sincerity,  and  self-sacrifice  in  the  private  who 
fought  in  gray  for  the  "  lost  cause,"  from  convictions 
which  birth  and  education  had  made  a  part  of  his  life. 
Desolation  sits  by  the  Southern  fireside,  and  over  all  the 
land  "  Rachel  mourns  for  her  children." 

But  there  is  still  another  representative  man — the  rep- 
resentative of  3,000,000  slaves,  who  had  been  waiting  in 
the  patience  of  long  suffering  and  sublime  confidence  of 
faith  for  the  hour  of  deliverance.  Deliverance  came  to 
him,  the  dusky  volunteer,  not  by  proclamation  of  presi- 
dent, or  constitutional  amendment,  but  in  the  field  of 
battle,  when  his  blood,  red  as  that  of  his  white  brothers, 
crimsoned  his  black  skin,  and  the  great  emancipation  en- 
franchised him  with  the  common  equality  of  death.  If 
that  is  most  precious  which  cost  most,  liberty  and  union 
should  be  the  immediate  jewels  of  our  soul.  To  lose 
either  is  to  sacrifice  both. 

Can  the  awful  forces  of  American  society,  which  the 
dread  necessities  of  war  disclosed,  be  organized  in  peace 


Il6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

in  the  cause  of  liberty  and  law  and  harnassed  to  the  cause 
of  progress  ? 

That  is  the  question  proposed  to  us.  That  is  the  duty- 
bequeathed  to  us  by  the  dead,  who  will  have  died  in  vain 
if  we  fail  to  discharge  it.  In  that  duty  only  we  can  link 
our  names  to  theirs  and  share  in  their  heritage  of  glory. 

I  look  around  me,  over  this  audience,  secure  in  the 
blessings  of  peace,  and  the  noise  of  battle  comes  to  me  as 
from  afar.  Gettysburg  and  Richmond  blend  with  the 
sound  of  Saratoga  and  Yorktown,  of  Thermopylae  and 
Marathon  in  the  triumphal  march  of  humanity.  I  listen 
for  the  footfall  of  coming  generations  in  the  distant,  far- 
off  future,  when  the  march  of  progress  shall  be  under  the 
white  banners  of  peace  to  the  tuneful  measure  of  love. 
"When  nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation, 
neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more." 

EXTRACT  FROM  ORATION. 

DELIVERED   AT   SACRAMENTO,   JULY  4,    1 877. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  From  the  high  vantage-ground 
of  the  century  we  look  back  through  the  vista  of  a  hun- 
dred years,  but  the  incidents  of  that  day  have  lost  none 
of  their  interest.  Imagination  may  idealize  them,  but  can- 
not exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  consequences  which 
flow  from  them  and  which  broaden  with  the  sun.  Before 
us  lies  the  future,  with  its  untried  possibilities.  The  past 
at  least  is  secure  beyond  the  change  of  time  or  chance  of 
fate.  What  would  the  history  of  the  century  be,  with  the 
United  States  left  out  ?  What  would  the  outlook  of  hu- 
manity be,  if  there  were  no  United  States  of  America? 

The  beginning  of  a  new  century  suggests  some  reflec- 
tions. Our  nation  is  no  longer  a  parvenu.  We  cannot 
plead  the  "  baby  act/'  or  attribute  indiscretions  to  the 
ebullience  of  youth.     We  have  attained  our  majority,  and 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  117 

are  entitled  to  sit  as  an  equal  with  the  elders  at  the  coun- 
cil-board of  empire.  Manhood  brings  new  duties  and 
responsibilities,  which  demand  independence  of  thought 
and  self-reliance  of  character.  We  can  no  longer  afford 
to  deprecate  criticism,  dress  ourselves  in  the  glass  of  the 
world's  approval,  and  ape  foreign  fashions  and  opinions. 
We  must  stand  erect,  not  in  the  boastfulness  of  youth, 
but  in  the  conscious  strength  of  manhood  ;  dare  to  think, 
speak,  and  do  the  right ;  not  beg  the  issue,  but  defy  criti- 
cism and  challenge  fate  to  the  lists.  If  the  American  idea 
is  worth  anything,  it  deserves  honest  utterance ;  if  Ameri- 
can life  is  worth  living,  it  is  worthy  to  be  cast  in  an 
American  mould.  Arrogance  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is 
better  than  the  cringing  obsequiousness  of  the  abject  imi- 
tation. There  are  those  who  will  not  read  an  American 
book,  admire  an  American  work  of  art,  or  appreciate  an 
American  thought,  until  it  has  received  the  signet  of  for- 
eign approval.  Nothing  home-made  is  good  enough  for 
them.  The  nativity  of  such  was  cast  under  a  wrong  star. 
There  are  others,  butterflies  of  fashion,  who  seem  to  apolo- 
gize for  being  Americans — and  who  ought  to  apologize 
for  being  alive.  Their  experience  of  life  is  confined  to 
eating,  sleeping,  dressing,  and  grumbling.  A  tight  boot 
will  throw  them  into  paroxysms  of  despair  over  the 
republic ;  an  ill-fitting  coat  is  a  sign  of  modern  degen- 
eracy ;  a  bad  digestion  shows  that  free  institutions  are  a 
delusion  and  a  sham.  Afflicted  with  mental  ophthalmia, 
nothing  is  fair  to  them  but  a  full-length  image  in  a  French 
mirror.  Suffering  an  incurable  moral  dyspepsia,  they  are 
nauseated  by  human  nature's  daily  food.  The  storm  of 
political  excitement  may  rage  round  them,  wrapped  in 
the  garment  of  their  superiority,  they  thank  God  they 
are  not  as  other  men,  and  have  no  responsibility  for  the 
evil  days  in  which  we  have  fallen. 

If  battles  had  to  be  fought,  great  deeds  done,  great 
sacrifices    made,    great    achievements    accomplished   by 


Il8  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

such  men,  what  a  perfect  world — of  toys,  perfumery,  and 
millinery — we  should  have  ! 

I  am  here  to-day  to  proclaim  my  faith  in  the  American 
people,  American  society,  American  institutions  and  form 
of  government,  and  my  belief  that,  take  them  for  all  in 
all,  they  are  the  best  we  know  of  on  the  habitable  globe, 
past  or  present.  I  am  here  to  proclaim  my  conviction 
that  at  no  time  in  our  past  have  the  ties  of  our  Union 
been  so  strong,  so  little  threatened  with  future  danger,  at 
no  time  has  the  doctrine  of  equal  rights  been  so  broadly 
exemplified,  as  now,  on  this  Fourth  day  of  July,  in  the 
year  of  grace  1877,  and  of  American  Independence  the 
I02d. 

We  have  of  late  been  passing  through  a  stage  of  intense 
introspection.  There  has  been  a  tendency  to  take  the 
clock  to  pieces,  because  it  did  not  keep  time  with  every- 
body's chronometer — to  pull  up  the  beans  to  see  if  they 
were  growing.  We  have  been  living  with  finger  on  the 
pulse  ;  we  have  been  studying  symptoms,  and  are  like  the 
patient  who  consults  a  quack  and  fancies  the  pimple  is  a 
cancer — every  passing  ache  and  trifling  pain  the  beginning 
of  an  incurable  malady.  We  have  been  too  much  like 
Addison's  hypochondriac  who  constantly  sat  in  a  weighing 
chair.  Every  fall  in  the  barometer  portends  a  hurricane 
of  disaster,  and  three  hot  days  suggest  an  earthquake ! 

I  know  we  are  not  perfect.  Outside  of  Utah  the  sin- 
ners outnumber  the  saints.  The  Centennial  did  not  usher 
in  the  millennium.  We  do  not  sleep  with  ascension  robes 
under  our  pillows  for  fear  Gabriel  will  take  us  by  surprise. 
There  is  perhaps  as  much  human  nature  to  the  square 
mile  here  as  elsewhere.  Even  in  politics,  an  ounce  of 
active  selfishness  will  effect  more  than  a  ton  of  good  in- 
tentions. If  one  does  not  sow  he  cannot  reap,  and  he 
must  summer-fallow  besides  ;  and  sometimes  when  he  has 
sown  the  rains  do  not  fall,  or  the  enemy  sows  tares  in  the 
night.     There  are  stony  places,  thorny  places,  and  barren 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES.  119 

places.  Neither  merit  nor  industry  is  always  rewarded. 
Ability  often  stands  at  the  gate  while  assurance  stalks  up 
the  steps  and  rings  the  front  bell.  Modesty  is  its  own 
reward,  and  apt  to  be  all  it  gets.  Honesty  sometimes 
walks  in  rags,  while  fraud  rolls  in  coach  and  livery,  in 
purple  and  fine  linen.  We  have  a  national  debt,  State, 
county,  city,  and  corporation  debts.  The  poor  we  have 
always  with  us.  We  have  suffering,  want,  vice,  crime, 
and  ignorance.  But  in  no  other  country  are  there  42,- 
000,000  people  so  well  fed,  clothed,  and  housed  ;  so  well 
informed  ;  of  so  high  a  sense  of  justice,  and  so  instinctive 
a  regard  for  law  as  in  the  United  States  of  America.  In 
no  other  country  could  social  order  be  so  well  preserved 
without  the  restraints  of  law  ;  could  society  so  well  stand 
alone  without  the  framework  of  government.  Let  us  rid 
ourselves  of  the  idea  that  any  form  of  government  is  an  ob- 
ject of  adoration  or  has  any  value  except  as  the  expression 
of  the  nation's  character.  It  is  the  protecting  shell  of 
society,  not  society  itself.  The  pomps  and  shows  and 
pageantry  of  government  are  the  relics  of  a  barbaric  age, 
the  survival  of  barbaric  taste.  If  there  were  no  vice  or 
crime  we  should  need  no  government. 

Not  the  government  but  the  American  people  is  the 
production  of  this  age  and  country. 

See  the  American  people — one  hundred  and  two  years 
ago  3,000,000  souls  in  thirteen  colonies,  stretched  along  the 
Atlantic  sea-board  !  For  a  principle  in  which  every  human 
being  has  an  interest,  they  sever  the  ties  which  bind  them  to 
the  Mother  Country,  and  engage  in  a  war  with  the  strongest 
power  in  the  world  ;  they  establish  their  independence 
and  ordain  a  constitution  which  is  a  masterpiece  of  politi- 
cal wisdom  ;  the  continent  is  theirs,  and  they  keep  open 
house  for  the  world  ;  they  flow  over  the  Alleghanies  and 
fill  up  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  they  clear  the  wil- 
derness to  make  room  for  States  ;  they  build  towns  and 
cities  and  dot  the  land  with  schools,  churches,  and  chari- 


120  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ties  ;  they  borrow  mechanical  arts  and  improve  them  ; 
they  contribute  a  world  of  inventions  and  discoveries  to 
the  common  treasury  of  humanity,  and  pay  their  debts  to 
civilization  with  compound  interest ;  they  cross  the  conti- 
nent, buttress  their  empire  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific, 
and  open  its  windows  to  the  setting  sun  ;  they  are  eager 
in  the  search  for  truth,  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  glad  to 
assimilate  all  intelligence,  to  appropriate  all  thought,  to 
arm  themselves  with  all  the  implements  of  art.  They 
have  redeemed  a  continent  from  a  wilderness  to  civiliza- 
tion, and  dedicated  it  from  sea  to  sea  to  free  thought, 
free  speech,  free  schools,  free  homes,  and  free  men. 

Humanity  could  not  spare  that  history.  It  is  one  of 
the  epics  of  progress. 

A  few  years  ago  a  million  of  armed  men,  inured  to 
hardship,  accustomed  to  danger,  elated  with  victory,  proud 
of  their  leaders,  disbanded,  melted  back  into  civil  life,  and 
patiently  resumed  the  toil  which  was  to  pay  the  debt  con- 
tracted for  services  themselves  had  rendered.  When  and 
where  else  could  that  have  occurred  ?  what  other  nation 
could  have  withstood  the  strain  of  a  sectional  war  like 
that  through  which  we  have  passed  ?  In  what  other 
country  could  the  vast  disturbance  of  moral,  political, 
social,  and  industrial  forces  occasioned  by  such  a  war  have 
been  so  peacefully  adjusted  ? 

If  our  country  is  steadfast  to  the  great  idea  of  political 
equality,  and  individual  liberty,  it  will  continue  an  ever- 
increasing  power  in  civilization.  False  to  it,  the  sceptre 
shall  depart  to  some  hand  worthy  to  hold  it.  If  it  stands 
in  the  way  of  progress,  "  Let  Rome  in  Tiber  melt,  and 
the  wide  arch  of  the  ranged  empire  fall."  If  it  shall  lead 
the  vanguard  of  the  nations  in  the  interest  of  man  ;  if  it 
continue  to  give  in  each  succeeding  age,  fuller  and  larger 
expression   of   the  truth  upon  which  its  existence  was 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES. 


121 


staked,  the  circling  centuries  will  roll  above  it  in  their 
starry  grandeur,  adding  to  its  usefulness  without  impair- 
ing its  strength,  and  crown  it  with  the  honors  of  age, 
without  robbing  it  of  the  grace  and  beauty  of  youth. 
"The  sceptre  shall  not  pass  from  Judah  until  Shiloh 
come." 


'wsiv:  ■     ttI 


OS* 


CHAPTER   II. 
POLITICAL  LIFE. 

Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company — His  Early  Friendship  for  it — Political 
Conflict  Created  by  its  Aggressions — His  Course  as  Leader  of  the 
People  against  them — Features  of  the  Long  and  Bitter  Struggle — His 
Forecast  of  the  Future  Sustained  by  Results  Twenty-five  Years  Later — 
Sec.  i,  The  Sacramento  Union — Sec.  2,  Course  as  Governor  of  Cali- 
fornia— Sec.  3,  Services  in  the  United  States  Senate — Retirement  from 
Political  Life. 

The  political  battle-ground  in  California,  for  the  past 
generation  always  debatable  and  hotly  contested  between 
the  two  great  parties,  has  been  and  is  the  scene  of  a  con- 
flict between  those  of  its  citizens  who  chafed  in  political 
chains  which  they  believed  to  be  corruptly  forged,  and 
who  revolted  against  practical  serfdom,  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  a  corporation  which,  aided  by  allies  from 
choice,  or  through  self-interest,  or  fear,  aimed  to  weld 
and  rivet  close  their  manacles,  absorb  their  substance, 
crush  or  control,  make  and  unmake  them  publicly  and 
privately  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  upon  the  other 
hand.  Between  collars  of  branding  gold  and  repressing 
fetters  of  iron,  there  was  little  attractive  choice  for  ambi- 
tious manhood  crippled  by  high  principles  and  integrity 
of  character. 

As  soon  as  that  corporation  exchanged  its  early  swad- 
dling-bands for  gold  armor ;  sat  up,  cherished  in  bland 
infancy,  and  took  nourishment  at  the  generous  breast  of 

122 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 23 

the  State  ;  entered  by  national  consent  upon  the  inheri- 
tance of  all  the  people,  the  dower  of  a  landed  property 
enormous  in  extent  and  value  and  fertile  to  sustain 
enormities  social  and  political ;  cloaked  itself  in  eleemosy- 
nary robes  of  vested  rights,  and  began  to  pulsate  with  the 
strength  of  the  rich  blood  of  commerce — it  struck  its  con- 
fiding nurses  and  beneficial  god-fathers  myriads  of  blows 
full  in  their  faces  with  iron  hands  which  wore  no  velvet 
gloves  ! 

In  the  struggle  which  then  began  and  which  yet  endures, 
Newton  Booth  was  the  early  champion  of  the  inherent 
rights  of  men,  their  recognized  leader  in  a  movement 
which  resulted  in  a  new  constitution  for  the  State  in  1879, 
their  undaunted,  tireless  advocate. 

He  had  been  among  the  foremost  of  the  friends  of  the 
railroad  project,  a  plan  which  was  of  vital  interest  to  the 
State,  and  which  as  a  war  measure  was  also  of  essential 
importance  to  the  general  government.  To  aid  the  enter- 
prise he  had  made  a  free,  liberal  gift  of  money.  At  the 
ceremony  of  breaking  ground  at  Sacramento,  January  8, 
1863,  he  was  the  brilliant  orator,  saying  in  closing : 

"  You,  sir,  to-day  have  inaugurated  a  most  glorious  work — a  work  whose 
beneficent  influences  shall  last  when  the  names  of  Egyptian  kings  and 
dynasties  shall  be  forgotten.  Hail,  then,  all  hail,  this  auspicious  hour  ! 
Hail  this  bond  of  brotherhood  and  union  !  Hail  this  marriage  tie  between 
the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  !  Hail,  all  hail,  this  bow  of  promise  which  amid 
all  the  clouds  of  war  is  seen  spanning  the  continent — the  symbol,  the 
harbinger,  the  pledge  of  a  higher  civilization  and  an  ultimate  and  world- 
wide peace  !  " 

In  the  State  Senate  that  winter  he  was  guardian  of  the 
interests  of  the  corporation,  watchful,  prompt,  effective. 
When  it  was  attempted  to  require  the  directors  to  adver- 
tise all  their  proposed  work,  and  let  contracts  to  the 
lowest  bidders,  his  able  antagonism  defeated  the  bill,  and 
made  the  Contract  and  Finance  Company  possible. 
When    authorization    of    a    million-dollar  gift    from  San 


124  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Francisco  was  sought  to  be  qualified  with  a  proviso, 
he  killed  the  offered  amendment.  He  lived  to  regret 
such  service.  Within  two  years  he  was  the  quiet  an- 
tagonist— in  four  the  open  one — of  the  aggressive  corpo- 
ration, the  management  of  which  had  already  whispered 
to  itself : 

"  He  thinks  too  much, — such  men  are  dangerous  !  " 

In  1865,  replying  to  a  covert  threat  that  patronage 
would  be  withdrawn  from  him  if  he  persisted  in  running 
for  the  State  Senate,  he  said  : 

"  My  goods  have  always  been  for  sale — my  principles  never  !  " 

and  he  was  defeated  by  a  few  votes  ;  in  1867,  cause  and 
result  repeated  themselves.  In  both  instances  nomina- 
tion was  unsought,  was  tendered  to  him,  hundreds  of 
miles   away,   by   telegraph    from    the   convention   floor. 

The  citizens  of  Sacramento  had  not  then  been  taught 
some  cruel  lessons  they  afterwards  learned. 

Two  years  later  it  became  evident  that  he  would  prob- 
ably receive  the  Republican  nomination  for  Governor  in 
1871. 

The  occasion  was  before  him  now  for  the  waging  of 
war  against  the  palpable  and  common  danger  from  exist- 
ing public  corruption,  private  timidity,  threatened  com- 
plete enslavement  of  all  classes  of  men,  control  by 
centralized  wealth  of  government,  general  and  local, — the 
occasion  was  at  hand  ;  the  cause  of  his  action  had  matured 
in  his  mind  and  become  his  fixed  conviction,  his  inflexible 
principle.  During  the  campaign  he  fought  with  such  de- 
clared purpose. 

Long  before,  in  one  of  his  finished  lectures,  he  had  said : 

"  The  regulation  (in  the  English  Parliament)  of  that  great  commercial 
monopoly  and  political  corporation,  the  East  India  Company  .  .  .  brought 
on  a  contest,  one  of  the  first  between  the  chartered  powers  and  vested  privi- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 25 

leges  of  a  corporation  upon  the  one  hand,  and  the  natural  rights  of  man  and 
supremacy  of  law  upon  the  other."  1 

In  another  lecture,  prepared  at  a  time  when  the  trans- 
continental railroad  companies  had  barely  begun  their 
work  of  despoiling  the  Republic  of  millions  of  money 
and  dictating  to  all  classes  of  voters,  he  expressed  this 
belief : 

"  Concentrated  capital  becomes  kingly  power  making  war  for  monopolies, 
seeking  new  fields  of  wealth  as  a  conqueror  invades  kingdoms  regardless  of 
the  rights  of  men,  and  esteeming  government  a  name  to  impose  on  the 
patriotism  of  the  simple,  while  it  is  made  subservient  to  and  a  part  of 
schemes  of  private  advantage."  2 

On  another  occasion,  this  : 

"  There  is  no  danger  that  we  will  lose  the  forms  of  a  republic.  There  is 
a  danger  that  we  may  ultimately  retain  only  the  forms.  Caleb  Cushing's 
famous  '  man  on  horseback '  is  as  distant  and  mythical  as  ever.  The  danger 
comes  from  another  direction.  The  eagles  on  the  coin,  not  in  the  standard, 
are  its  badge.  It  is  gold,  not  steel,  which  threatens.  It  shapes  itself  in  the 
endeavor  to  make  government  and  law  subservient  to  private  rather  than 
public  good — to  special  rather  than  general  interests.  The  contest  will  be 
between  associated  capital  and  popular  rights.  Let  the  field  be  cleared  for 
that  action,  and  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead  !  "  3 

The  prolific  brood  of  our  present-day  multiple-million- 
aires lay  then  in  their  cradles. 

There  is  a  voluminous  railroad  literature  now — there 
was  none  then  worth  perusal — touching  public  peril  in  the 
United  States  from  the  intrenched,  expanding,  myriad- 
faced  powers  of  incorporated  monopolies.  Exposure  of 
the  Credit  Mobilier  was  not  made  until  late  in  1872  ;  the 
method  and  results  of  the  Contract  and  Finance  Company 
lay  coiled  away  out  of  sight  until  its  work  was  done — the 
records  then  destroyed.  When  fierce  light  flashed  upon 
each,  he  publicly  scored  them  both  as 

1 '  A  twin-birth  of  incestuous  shame  !  "  4 

1  Lecture  on  "  Fox." 

2  Lecture  on  "  Morals  and  Politics." 

3  Speech  on  "  National  Issues,"  at  Piatt's  Hall,  San  Francisco. 

4  "  Railroad  Problem  in  American  Politics." 


126  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  selections  given  in  this  volume  from  his  contribu- 
tions to  the  literature  named  will  long  be  worth  study. 
Perhaps  "  he  builded  better  than  he  knew  "  ;  Emerson  did 
not  immortalize  that  idea  until  after  many  men  had 
done  so. 

He  feared  the  concentration  of  power  in  a  few  hands, — 
possibly  one  hand  ;  a  self-constituted  oligarchy,  perhaps 
an  Augustus  Caesar  preferring  substance  to  semblance  in 
imperial  sway  ;  the  decay  of  individual  enterprise  in  its 
over-shadowing  presence ;  a  throttle-valve  controlling  all 
personal  aspiration  ;  the  loss  of  freedom  of  thought  and 
action  ;  the  arrogance  of  riches  arrayed  against  a  sense  of 
dependence — the  servility  of  want ;  the  insidious  influence 
of  those  who  were  "  sycophants  from  the  choice  of  their 
own  slavish  and  subservient  souls  "  ;  an  iron  finger  upon 
every  pulse  of  industry,  counting  its  beats "  ;  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  communistic  prophecy  made  by  Daniel 
Webster  at  Plymouth  Rock,  December  22,  1820 ;  the  cor- 
ruption of  legislators  in  their  halls,  judges  in  chambers 
and  on  the  bench,  Congressmen  and  Cabinets,  minor 
officials  in  droves  ;  the  terrorizing  of  merchants  into  re- 
pressed utterance  and  open  subjection  ;  a  sword  of 
Damocles,  engraved  with  ALL  THE  TRAFFIC  WILL  BEAR, 
suspended  over  the  head  of  every  farmer  and  pro- 
ducer ;  the  submission  of  the  army  of  labor  in  making 
choice  between  that  and  the  hunger  of  their  families ;  the 
allurements  of  proffered  wealth  and  power  to  the  brightest 
legal  minds  of  highest   culture1;   the  prostration  of  the 

1  The  Hon.  Creed  Haymond  stated  the  issue  at  Sacramento,  Sept.  4, 
1872,  as  follows  :  "  There  is  but  one  single  contest,  and  that  contest  is  be- 
tween the  people  on  the  one  side  and  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company 
on  the  other. 

"  It  has  been  said  that  we  ought  not  to  aim  our  shafts  or  direct  our  jave- 
lins against  that  company.  I  ask,  has  it  not,  in  the  language  of  the  resolu- 
tions, dictated  policies  to  the  people  of  this  State  ?  Has  it  not  made  and 
unmade  our  laws  ?  Has  it  not  controlled  conventions  and  dictated  nomina- 
tions ?     Has  it  not  corrupted  Legislatures  ?     Has  it  not  assailed  the  late  as 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 27 

body  politic,  local  and  general,  before  a  shrine  erected  and 
maintained  by  an  iron  will ;  the  greed  and  weakness  of 
the  ambitious,  noted  by  Shakespeare  : 

"  O  that  estates,  degrees,  and  offices  were  not  derived  corruptly  !  and  that 

clear  honor 
Were  purchased  by  the  merit  of  the  wearer  !  " 

All  this  he  had  foreseen  and  dreaded,  and  against  it  bat- 
tled as  a  leader. 

How  much  of  it  has  come  to  pass  ? 

Let  those  who  ask  themselves  that  question  now,  ob- 
serve, read, — and  reflect ! 

He  lived  to  see  what  is  now  apparent  to  all — the  power 
of  the  law  paralyzed  too  often  in  courts  of  all  grades ; 
Congressmen  and  legislators  labelled  as  merchandise ; 
taxes  unpaid  in  California  to  the  amount  of  $3,000,000, — 
a  million  of  it  owing  to  the  school  fund  ;  a  debt  to  the 
United  States,  of  the  California  corporation  alone,  that  at 
maturity  a  few  years  hence  will  amount  to  $77,043,630.66 
— for  the  payment  of  which  an  extension  of  time  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  is  asked. 

In  his  self-imposed  work  Newton  Booth  was  courageous 
and  great.  He  led  the  attack  in  the  United  States  upon 
the  insolence  and  the  terrible  powers  of  corporations 
"  without  souls." 

The  men  who  were  fortified  by  laws  which  drained  the 
resources  of  the  commonwealth  and  turned  flowing 
streams  of  gold  into  their  capacious  coffers,  he  never 
named  personally  in  his  open  warfare — waged  upon  prin- 
ciple ;  but  he  would  not  admit  any  merit  or  justice  in 
their  declaration  that  self-defence  compelled  corporations 
to  control  all  political  parties.     To  that  plea  he  replied : 

well  as  the  present  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  State  because  both  were  true  to 
the  great  interests  of  the  people  ?  When  the  answer  comes,  as  come  it  must, 
'  All  this  and  more  has  it  done,'  I  can  but  feel  that  we  would  be  recreant  to 
our  trusts  and  false  to  the  people,  were  we  to  turn  aside  our  arms  at  the 
mention  of  its  name." 


128  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"I  do  not  think  railroads  need  be  political  machines  any  more  than 
grist-mills,  tin-shops,  and  farms. "  x 

The  most  incisive  speech  he  ever  made  contains  this  : 

'  •  Do  not  understand  me  to  say  now  that  the  owners  or  managers  of  rail- 
roads are  different  from  other  men,  or  that  they  have  met  together  in  a 
conspiracy  to  do  a  particular  thing,  and  are  methodically  proceeding  upon  a 
fixed  plan.  Great  social  or  political  changes  are  seldom  or  never  wrought 
that  way."2 

Concerning  individuals  he  cared  little,  and  as  a  rule  he 
refrained  from  personal  attacks.  Of  great  principles, 
public  danger  from  irresponsible  power,  the  rights  of  the 
trembling  many  menaced  by  the  powerful  few,  he  was  the 
volunteer  guardian. 

His  moral  courage  was  greater  than  the  measure  of  it 
has  been  in  the  mind  of  Californians  :  the  glitter  of  con- 
centrated gold  occasionally  blinded  their  eyes  against  the 
flashes  of  his  keen  intellect — the  weight  of  it  at  times  sunk 
their  perceptions  to  the  level  of  careless  ingratitude. 
There  was  a  thoughtful  and  large  minority  which  recog- 
nized his  great  qualities ;  but,  contrasted  with  the  ap- 
preciation openly  given  them  by  his  fellow-citizens,  his 
services  were  as  Niagara  to  a  mill-pond — Yosemite  to  a 
soap-bubble. 

One  who  had  known  him  well,  and  whose  own  character 
and  public  services  were  in  harmony  with  his, 3  wrote 
upon  the  occasion  of  his  death  a  thoughtful  tribute  to  his 
memory.  The  first  stanza,  however,  must  be  challenged. 
Newton  Booth  did  not  fail  of  effort  and  purpose  as  long 
as  such  were  possible  factors  in  the  broad  strife.  What 
could  he  have  added  to  that  which  he  had  already  said  ? 
He  knew  that  an  Achilles,  sulking  in  his  tent,  was   apt  to 

1  "  Railroad  Problem  in  American  Politics." 

2  The  gifted,  brilliant,  and  able  lawyer  and  honorable  man,  Creed  Hay- 
mond,  succeeding  Sanderson,  became  chief  attorney  for  the  company  a  few 
years  later,  and  remained  so  until  his  death. 

3  Joseph  T.  Goodman,  of  Nevada. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  1 29 

be  derided  ;  but  knew  also  that  he  had  left  nothing  that 
he  could  do,  undone.  In  one  of  his  addresses  he  had  said  : 
"  In  this  age,  whatever  stands  still,  recedes — whatever 
ceases  to  grow,  dies."  * 

The  following  is  the  tribute  referred  to : 

"  We  give  his  ashes  back  to  earth  to-day, 
But  in  the  true  sense  he  died  long  ago  ; 
When  effort  fails  and  purpose  fades  away 
The  rest  of  life  is  but  an  afterglow. 

**  We  watched  him  mount  with  his  audacious  sweep 
Of  pinion  till  his  forehead  touched  the  sun, 
But  while  the  all-hail  swelled,  lo  !  in  the  deep 
Our  Icarus  lay,  his  flight  forever  done. 

•'  No  wax  wings  his,  through  which  the  fervid  heat 
Of  trial  melted — fire  they  had  withstood — 
But  he  grew  weary  of  their  constant  beat 

Against  the  pricks,  and  folded  them  for  good. 

"  His  nature  was  too  fine,  his  soul  too  pure 
To  jocky  in  the  time's  ignoble  race, 
Bribe,  bargain,  cringe,  or  even  to  endure 

The  shame  that  common  purchase  stamps  on  place. 

"  Woe  to  the  State  where  precedence  and  place 
Are  in  the  open  market  bought  and  sold, 
Where  modest  worth  is  forced  to  bow  its  face 
Before  the  coarse  effrontery  of  gold  ! 

"  You  stabbed  his  heart,  you  turned  from  your  true  friend 
To  worship  at  a  bogus  Caesar's  feet — 
In  frenzy  bade  Hyperion  descend, 
And  raised  a  bloated  satyr  to  his  seat. 

"  Ah,  ye  are  penitent !     Let  every  toll 
Of  his  funeral  bell  record  a  vow 
To  be  unshackled  men,  and  his  great  soul 
Shall  bear  the  palm  of  triumph  even  now." 


1  Address  to  Odd  Fellows,  at  Red  Bluff,  April  26,  i860. 


130  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

SEC.  I.  The  history  of  a  great  journal,  singularly  pure, 
firm,  and  splendid  in  character  and  attributes,  and  its  final 
crucifixion,  are  incidentally  so  interwoven  with  his  biogra- 
phy as  to  require  brief  mention. 

The  Sacramento  Union  was  without  a  peer  west  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  It  had  earned,  it  cherished,  and  it 
exercised  the  right  to  create  public  opinion  by  unswerv- 
ing guardianship  of  public  interests.  The  incessant  stream 
of  its  editorial  work  bore  upon  the  surface  coruscations 
of  literary  elegance,  reflected  in  every  ripple  steadfast 
courage  and  allegiance  to  the  truth ;  and  in  its  clear  and 
evenly  flowing  depths  displayed  boundless  resources  of 
scholarly  statesmanship,  never  tempered  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  moment,  but  devoted  always  to  the  common  safety 
and  welfare.  Necessarily  it  wielded  great  influence.  It 
was  fearless — incorruptible.  The  Central  Pacific  Railway 
— failing  to  bribe,  powerless  to  intimidate — crushed  it  to 
death  after  a  struggle  which  lasted  from  1867  to  1875. 

All  classes  of  men  in  the  commonwealth  upon  which  it 
depended  for  that  circulating  life-blood  which  assures 
prosperity,  were  driven  in  self-defence  to  ostracism  ;  they 
dared  not  to  support  it  longer  for  fear  that  if  they  did  they 
would  be  deprived  of  support  themselves.  After  the 
Union  became  a  losing  property,  its  brave  proprietors  con- 
tinued to  publish  it  until  each  of  them  had  lost  $150,000. 
Even  then  they  peremptorily  refused  private  offers  from 
agents  of  the  railroad  company,  and  announced  to  the 
public  that  the  sale  of  the  paper  would  be  by  public 
auction. 

One  of  the  editors  of  the  Union,  sorrowfully  walking 
away  after  the  auction  on  the  sidewalk  : 

"  Woe  worth  the  chase,  woe  worth  the  day 
That  cost  thy  life,  my  gallant  gray  ! 
I  little  thought,  when  first  thy  rein 
I  slacked  upon  the  banks  of  Seine, 
That  the  foul  raven  e'er  would  feed 
On  thy  fleet  limbs — my  matchless  steed  !  " 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  131 

Newton  Booth  felt  that  murder  keenly — deeply.  A 
general  had  lost  that  which  was  precious  as  an  army — a 
leader  the  sustaining  arm  of  a  power  greater  than  his 
own  !  In  an  address  to  the  citizens  of  Sacramento,  he 
said  with  caustic  force  '  : 

"  A  decree  had  been  registered  by  the  railroad  company  that  the  Sacra- 
mento Union  should  be  destroyed.  It  was  the  ablest  newspaper  ever 
published  in  a  community  of  this  size.  Its  service  in  the  cause  of  right  and 
truth  had  been  of  inestimable  value.  It  had  never  bowed  to  power  or  truckled 
to  position  or  soiled  its  integrity.  Being  dead,  it  yet  lives,  and  its  spirit 
walks  abroad.  But  it  had  refused  to  share  with  the  railroad  in  a  legislative 
scheme  of  plunder,  and  had  stood  boldly  up  in  defence  of  the  people  and 
their  rights,  against  all  schemes,  open  or  insidious.  It  was  destroyed,  at 
their  bidding,  in  the  house  of  its  friends.  There  has  been  no  other  such 
exhibition  of  the  brute  power  of  money  to  crush  free  speech,  in  American 
history.  You  have  exchanged  the  Sacramento  Union  for  the  promise  of  a 
1  rolling-mill ! ' — a  promise  that  will  be  renewed  as  often  as  you  are  asked 
to  sacrifice  your  manhood  to  the  will  of  those  who  aspire  to  be  your  august 
masters,  and  fulfilled  when  it  suits  their  sovereign  pleasure,  convenience, 
and  interest  ;  and  if  it  should  ever  be  fulfilled,  its  smoke  will  only  serve  to 
remind  you  of  your  shame  !  "  2 

SEC.  2.  As  Governor  of  California,  Mr.  Booth's  ardu- 
ous and  effective  labors,  unswerving  firmness  of  purpose, 
thoughtful  and  suggestive  State  papers,  prudent  financial 
policy,  and  admitted  excellence  of  administration  are 
matters  of  local  rather  than  general  interest. 

The  Executive  power  he  wielded  was  directed  against 
the  monopolists,  only  in  legitimate  and  dignified  channels 
flooded  by  the  light  of  open  debate.  Petty  revenges  were 
beneath  the  level  of  his  nature,  foreign  to  his  broad  pur- 
pose. Every  just  and  wholesome  demand  made  by  cor- 
porations and  acceded  to  by  the  Legislature,  he  approved 
into  laws. 

An  extra  session  of  the  Legislature  was  vehemently 
urged  by  capitalists,  sustained  by  a  powerful  press,  to 
cure  defects  in  a  single  law  ;  he  refused  to  call  it. 

1  Speech  at  Sacramento,  July  22,  1875. 

2  This  tribute  is  due  to  the  memory  of  James  Anthony  and  Paul  Morrill. 


132  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  veto  prerogative  he  used  freely,  yet  approved  1316 
laws.1  The  pardoning  power  he  exercised  with  rare  con- 
scientiousness, yet,  on  the  average,  pardoned  one  convict 
weekly.  On  the  average,  too,  once  in  every  six  weeks  a 
man  was  condemned  to  death  in  California,  and  the  law 
required  the  Chief  Executive  to  read  all  the  testimony  in 
each  case.  He  did  so — and  commuted  but  five  sentences. 
One  of  those  commutations  illustrates  his  sense  of  justice. 
William  Williams  was  sentenced  to  death  in  1871,  for 
murder  in  Siskiyou  County.  The  reason  for  Executive 
interference  was  written  by  the  Governor : 

"  Decision. — Whereas,  the  case  having  been  finally  decided  on  appeal 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  State,  so  that  no  hope  of  a  reversal  of  sentence 
or  delay  of  execution  was  left ;  and  whereas,  the  said  Williams  being  thus 
under  sentence  of  death,  made  his  escape  from  jail  without  personal  vio- 
lence ;  and  whereas,  the  officers  who  were  responsible  for  his  safekeeping, 
after  exhausting  other  means  for  his  capture,  caused  information  to  be  con- 
veyed to  him  that  his  sentence  had  been  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life, 
and  the  said  Williams,  believing  such  information  to  be  true,  surrendered 
himself.  Now,  believing  that  the  State  ought  not  in  any  manner  to  be  a 
party  to  a  violation  of  faith,  even  to  the  guilty,  and,  least  of  all,  in  a  matter 
involving  life  and  death, — therefore  let  his  sentence  be  commuted  to  im- 
prisonment in  the  State  prison  for  the  term  of  his  natural  life."  * 

His  biennial  message  to  the  Legislature  contained  an 
exhaustive  essay  on  the  pardoning  power ;  the  conclud- 
ing words  of  that  on  capital  punishment  were : 

"Executions  are  required  to  be  private,  but  in  this  age  of  newspapers 
they  are  faithfully  reported  to  every  fireside,  and  whatever  of  evil  influence 
there  was  in  public  executions  before  the  newspaper  age,  is  necessarily  in- 
creased in  tenfold  degree.  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  death  penalty  should  be 
abolished,  and  some  kind  of  imprisonment,  different  from  that  provided  for 
crimes  of  lower  grade  than  murder,  should  be  devised  instead  ;  and  that  in 
such  cases  the  power  of  pardon  should  be  so  circumscribed  as  to  require 
proof  of  innocence  before  it  could  be  exercised." 

1  Legislative  bills  to  the  number  of  2658  were  introduced  during  his  term 
of  office. 

2  The  officers  forged  a  commutation,  including  the  great  seal  of  the  State 
and  the  Governor's  signature. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 33 

Although  such  was  his  opinion,  he  withstood  at  times 
pressure  almost  incredible  brought  to  bear  upon  him  by 
friends  of  murderers.  Sworn  to  maintain  the  laws,  he  did 
so,  often  at  the  cost  of  intense  mental  suffering— not  on 
account  of  the  criminal  so  much  as  on  that  of  relatives. 
He  was  too  humane  and  sympathetic  by  nature  to  look 
with  composure  upon  lacerated  hearts.  On  one  occasion, 
while  telling  a  pleading  woman  that  her  son  must  die  the 
day  following,  he  became  faint  from  emotion,  and  did  not 
recover  for  hours  ;  on  another  he  handed  his  secretary  a 
letter,  saying  :  "  Write  to  this  lady  and  tell  her — as  best 
you  may,  no  language  can  temper  the  blow — /  cannot  save 
her  brother  ;  the  task  is  too  painful  for  me." 

A  brutal  assassin  condemned  to  death  feigned  insanity 
so  artistically  that  the  Governor  was  in  doubt.  He  in- 
duced the  superintendent  of  the  State  Insane  Asylum  to 
spend  a  week — disguised  as  a  prisoner — in  jail  with  the 
murderer.  The  result  was  convincing  proof  of  sanity — 
and  execution  followed. 

In  brief,  he  was  of  the  judicial  habit  of  thought,  in- 
clined always  to  mercy — but  sternly  unwavering  when 
facing  established  facts.  These  incidents  are  given 
simply  to  illustrate  his  character. 

Doubtless  all  governors  receive  many  threats  of  assas- 
sination. He  did — and  merely  smiled  as  he  placed  them 
on  the  "  anonymous  "  file  of  his  secretary. 

During  his  gubernatorial  term  he  entertained  in  a  man- 
ner and  upon  a  scale  commensurate  with  his  dignity  and 
circumstances.  Occasionally,  also,  small  gatherings  at  his 
home,  of  from  forty  to  sixty  guests,  were  made  the  more 
delightful  by  being  chiefly  literary  ;  the  contributions  in- 
cluding essays,  poems,  satires,  ballads,  and  musical  com- 
positions,— all  original  with  the  guests,  and  many  of  suf- 
ficient merit  to  find  wider  audiences  afterwards  through 
the  magazines. 

The  years  of  Mr.  Booth's  administration,  although  not 


134  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

marked  by  extraordinary  incident,  were  full  of  interest 
and  importance  to  Californians.  He  suggested  many 
new  laws,  and  amendments  to  those  existing,  nearly  all  of 
which  have  since  been  adopted.  The  spirit  of  the  Execu- 
tive pervaded  all  State  institutions.  His  business  ex- 
perience and  habits  were  valuable  there.  He  left  these 
institutions  in  much  better  condition  than  that  in  which 
he  found  them. 

Suspecting  the  most  important  Board  of  Commissioners 
in  the  State  of  being  corrupt,  he  acted  instantly,  exam- 
ined affairs  personally,  went  from  investigation  to  imme- 
diate prosecution.  One  of  them  resigned  with  clean 
hands ;  another  died  pending  trial  under  indictment ;  the 
chief  offender,  a  man  of  great  wealth,  went  to  State  prison 
for  six  years. 

California  never  has  been  afflicted  with  a  corrupt  gov- 
ernor, or  one  mentally  weak,  and  never  has  had  one  of 
higher  character  than  Newton  Booth. 

Sec.  3.  Of  his  work  in  the  United  States  Senate,  some 
of  his  speeches  and  his  exquisite  tributes  to  the  dead  are 
given  in  this  volume  ;  the  remainder  are  omitted.  All  of 
the  addresses  may  of  course  be  found  in  the  records.  He 
was  faithful  in  practice  to  his  theory  of  the  ideal  legislator 
by  being  constant  and  energetic  in  quiet  work.  In  a 
lecture  he  had  said  : 

"The  immensely  increased  pressure  of  public  business  demands  from 
public  men  a  constant  and  laborious  attention  to  details,  and  makes  de- 
spatch more  valuable  than  speech — the  committee-man  more  useful  than  the 
orator.     .     . 

"  Now,  legislative  action  is  governed  by  public  opinion,  and  the  journal- 
ist has  acquired  the  influence  which  the  orator  has  lost."  ' 

Such  was  his  teaching — such  his  action.  The  Senate 
contained  a  no  more  valuable  working  member. 

1  Lecture  on  "  Fox." 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 35 

He  served  on  the  Committees  on  Public  Lands,  Civil 
Service  and  Retrenchment,  Mines  and  Mining,  and  as 
Chairman  of  those  on  Patents  and  Manufactures. 

Content  to  work  quietly  and  faithfully  for  the  interests 
of  all  people,  he  deliberately  subordinated  his  personality 
to  public  service. 

Those  of  his  constituents  who  had  expected  him  to 
pursue  a  course  marked  by  a  splendor  of  mental  equip- 
ment in  oratorical  display — and  they  were  many — were 
bitterly  disappointed. 

Yet,  while  he  did  not  choose  to  seek  national  fame  for 
eloquence  and  power  in  debate,  he  spoke  at  length  and 
with  polished  force,  as  well  as  thorough  knowledge  of  his 
subject,  upon  every  question  involving  especially  the  in- 
terests of  California.  Let  that,  at  least,  be  known  in  the 
State  of  his  adoption. 

Nine  days  after  he  took  his  seat,  March  9,  1875,  the 
Hawaiian  treaty  was  debated  in  executive  session.  He 
opposed  it  in  a  compact  and  powerful  argument.  Con- 
sidering later  events,  it  is  interesting  to  quote  his 
prophecy  l : 

"  But,  Mr.  President,  it  will  not  be  seriously  contended  that  this  treaty 
with  a  nation  which  the  Senator  from  Vermont  (Mr.  Morrill)  aptly  styled  the 
kingdom  of  Lilliput,  has  been  negotiated  upon  our  part  for  any  commercial 
purpose.  The  object  is  political.  It  is  assumed  that  by  bringing  ourselves 
into  special  relations  with  the  Hawaiian  Islands  we  shall  acquire  a  protec- 
torate over  them  and  eventually  their  sovereignty." 

Again : 

"  No  sir, — This  colonial  idea  means  an  innovation  upon  our  general  plan 
of  government.  It  will  be  a  government  at  Washington  of  islands  2000  miles 
distant  from  our  nearest  port.  It  means  that  we  are  to  become  a  great 
naval  power,  with  distant  possessions  which  it  is  a  point  of  honor  to  defend, 
with  all  the  additional  expense  and  strengthening  of  the  central  government 
which  that  implies.  It  means  that  we,  a  Continental  republic,  shall  enter 
upon  a  colonial  system  like  that  of  the  insular  kingdom  of  Great  Britain, 
and  which  many  of  the  wisest  British  statesmen  to-day  regard  as  the  great 

1  The  speech  is  not  given  in  this  book. 


136  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

mistake  in  the  policy  of  their  government.     It  is  only  a  beginning,  but  a  be- 
ginning which  in  my  judgment  we  should  avoid." 

And  in  conclusion  : 

"  I  differ,  Mr.  President,  with  great  diffidence  upon  this  question  from 
the  other  Senators  of  the  Pacific  Coast  States,  but  I  can  come  to  no  other 
conclusion.  I  can  see  in  the  avowed  commercial  purposes  of  this  treaty 
nothing  but  loss,  in  its  real  political  object  nothing  but  danger. 

"  The  problems  of  our  government  are  difficult  enough  without  further 
complications,  and  there  is  room  on  this  continent  for  our  highest  ambi- 
tion." 

His  attitude  towards  the  Pacific  railroads  remained 
firm  and  unflinching.  As  fearlessly  and  as  frankly  as  he 
had  spoken  in  California  he  addressed  the  Senate  when- 
ever occasion  gave  opportunity  for  argument  to  be  really 
listened  to  : 

"  I  am  unwilling  by  implication,  by  giving  a  silent  vote,  to  be  placed  in 
the  category  of  those  who  follow  the  hue  and  cry,  who  pander  to  prejudice 
for  the  sake  of  popularity,  or  who  exact  from  the  weak  what  they  would  not 
demand  from  the  strong. 

"  These  companies  are  not  weak.  If  any  one  supposes  they  are,  let  him 
attack  them  in  the  citadels  of  their  strength.  They  have  but  one  rule  of 
policy — first,  employ  all  means  to  convince  ;  failing  in  that,  all  means  to 
crush  !  Since  I  have  had  the  honor  to  have  a  seat  upon  this  floor,  when 
any  question  touching  a  conflict  between  them  and  the  people  has  been 
under  consideration,  their  agents,  attorneys,  and  lobbyists  have  swarmed  in 
our  corridors  ;  they  have  blocked  the  way  to  our  committee-rooms,  and 
have  set  spies  upon  our  actions.  To-day  they  would  occupy  these  vacant 
chairs  but  for  the  timely  order  of  the  President  of  the  Senate  to  double- 
guard  our  doors."  1 

1 '  The  bill  is  an  attempt  to  make  us  particeps  criminis  in  the  fraud  that 
the  men  who  hang  around  our  doors  would  perpetrate.  Pass  this  bill,  but 
change  its  enacting  clause  and  let  it  read  :  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Central 
Pacific  and  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Companies ,  and  then  do  not  send  it  for 
approval  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  ;  for  he  represents  the 
sovereignty  of  this  people  ;  send  it  for  approval  to  the  presidents  of  the 
companies.  Yet  that  is  scarcely  necessary.  It  is  the  coin  and  mintage  of 
their  brain.     It  was  approved  in  advance." 

1  Speech  on  "  Pacific  Railroad  Acts,"  Feb.  14,  1877. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  1 37 


A  year  later : 


"  The  bill  of  the  Railroad  Committee  has  been  called  a  settlement.  To 
my  mind  it  is  a  surrender.  The  whole  amount  of  money  involved  in  this 
subject  is  of  trifling  importance  compared  with  the  principle  which  it  pro- 
poses to  surrender.  Sir,  the  question  is  before  us  ;  let  us  not  barter,  let  us 
not  dicker  ;  let  us  legislate.  If  we  are  as  powerless  as  is  contended  on  behalf 
of  the  Railroad  Committee,  let  us  learn  that  from  the  highest  judicial 
authority,  for  if  that  be  so  there  will  be  no  more  charters  granted,  nor  aids 
bestowed  while  the  world  stands  or  Congress  remains  sane. 

"  The  Senator  from  Georgia  in  his  eloquent  peroration  said  that  these 
railroad  companies  are  not  the  kind  of  corporations  which  he  dreads.  What 
he  dreads  is  the  great  and  growing  power  of  the  corporation  of  the  Federal 
Government.  I  accept  the  term  from  his  standpoint.  From  that  point  of 
view  these  corporations  swell  into  the  imperial  proportions  of  sovereignty, 
or  in  their  overshadowing  presence  this  government  dwarfs  into  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  corporation.  I  accept  the  term.  The  stockholders  in  this 
corporation  of  the  Federal  Government  are  forty-five  million  people  entitled 
'to  share  and  share  alike  in  all  its  benefits.  Its  charter  is  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  It  holds  in  its  hands  the  title-deeds  to  liberty  for 
countless  millions  yet  to  be.  I  trust  it  will  ever  be,  as  I  believe  it  has  ever 
been,  full  of  grace,  mercy,  and  loving  kindness  to  its  friends  ;  dreadful  only 
to  its  enemies.  Look  upon  this  picture  and  then  upon  that.  The  record  of 
the  corporation  he  does  not  dread  can  be  read  in  the  transactions  of  the 
Credit  Mobilier  and  the  Contract  Finance  Companies.  His  election  is  not 
mine,  but  I  thank  the  Senator  for  the  boldness  of  his  speech.  He  has 
cloven  this  subject  to  the  centre  ;  he  has  cleft  its  heart  in  twain.  It  is  a 
question  as  to  where  our  allegiance  is  due.  We  cannot  serve  two  masters, 
which  shall  we  serve?"  x 

The  Pacific  railroads  and  the  friends  of  their  magnates 
were  not  alone  in  their  fixed  enmity  to  the  Senator  who 
dared  to  assail  them  so  fearlessly,  who  ventured  to  invoke 
the  spirit  of  justice  in  the  august  Senate,  and  who 
demanded  the  enforcement  of  the  laws  in  defence  of  the 
public  interests. 

Other  powerful  corporations  gave  him  a  full  measure  of 
hostility. 

The  bold  and  repeated  utterance  of  the  idea  that  the 
people   not   only  possess   sovereign   power,    but   should 

1  Speech  on  "  Pacific  Railroads,"  April  3,  1878.  (Only  this  extract  is 
given.) 


138  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

actually  insist  through  their  representatives  upon  the 
exercise  of  such  power,  was  full  of  real  danger  to  mo- 
nopolists everywhere. 

It  was  of  importance  to  suppress  such  eloquence.  To 
do  so,  to  a  great  extent,  was  not  difficult.  The  telegraph 
wires  could  be  spared  the  burden  of  it  by  those  who  con- 
trolled them.  Owners  and  managers  of  journals  could 
fill  their  columns  with  topics  less  menacing  to  their  purses. 
The  fees  of  political  attorneys,  in  Congress  and  out  of  it, 
and  many  other  places  than  Washington,  were  threatened 
with  the  shrinkage  resulting  from  curbed  power.  Corpo- 
ration hosts  were  strong  enough  in  their  widely  various 
citadels,  in  both  the  great  political  fields,  to  dictate  the 
tenor  of  despatches  sent  throughout  the  land  ;  thrifty 
camp-followers  were  numerous,  obedient,  and  vigilant. 
The  arrogance  of  certain  corporate  organizations  had  been 
rebuked  too  openly ;  and  the  bitterest  antagonism  was 
aroused. 

The  individuality  in  the  man,  the  work  he  had  already 
done,  the  courage  and  power  he  had  displayed,  were  to 
his  enemies  as  offensive  as  his  consistent  attitude  as  Sen- 
ator was  alarming.  The  desire  for  revenge  was  strong, 
the  need  of  political  precaution  great. 

Thus  it  occurred  that  of  his  really  brilliant  services  in 
the  Senate  little  record  was  made  throughout  the  coun- 
try, and  in  California  hardly  any  reports  were  published. 
In  these  days  of  electricity  the  delay  of  a  week 
or  two  in  proclaiming  the  work  of  a  statesman  robs  that 
work  of  its  immediate  value ;  the  suppression  of  the  bet- 
ter part  of  it  is  almost  as  fatal  to  his  political  reputation 
as  the  silence  of  the  grave. 

In  the  brilliant  array  of  giants  in  debate  on  "  The  Silver 
Question,"  he  justly  took  high  rank.  He  compressed  into 
a  speech  of  less  than  two  hours  suggestive  facts  ;  acute 
reasoning ;  knowledge  of  the  inner  meaning  and  outward 
results  of  financial  methods  in  the  United  States  for  more 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 39 

than  a  century ;  analysis  of  the  relations,  one  to  another, 
of  gold,  silver,  currency,  and  credit  throughout  the  world  ; 
philosophy  of  national  and  individual  honor  involved  in 
the  question  debated  ;  and  illustrated  it  all  with  keen 
expression  of  logical  thought,  flashes  of  wit,  and  "  sabre 
cuts  of  Saxon  speech."  * 

On  the  subject  of  "Currency  and  Banking"  he  had 
shortly  before  written  public  letters  which  attracted  wide 
attention.2 

Both  the  speech  and  the  letters  are  of  permanent  value, 
and  are  given  in  this  volume. 

So,  also,  is  given  his  characteristic  remarks  on  "  Chinese 
Immigration,"  and  an  address  to  the  Senate  of  peculiar 
elegance  and  power. 

Having  been  elected  as  an  independent  Senator,  he  had 
little  patronage  at  his  disposal  to  reward  political  friends  ; 
and  his  personal  friends  grew  regretful  to  the  verge  of 
indignation  at  what  they  thought  his  neglect  of  oppor- 
tunity, or  lack  of  energy,  to  assert  himself.  Distant 
thousands  of  miles,  they  did  not  learn  how  faithfully  he 
toiled  at  the  working-oar.  Account  of  that  was  eliminated 
from  the  news  despatches,  by  his  enemies,  with  gold  pens. 
He  could  not  stoop  to  beseech  constituents  to  scan  the 
records — there  was  nothing  of  the  moral  mendicant  in  his 
nature. 

Through  perceptions  too  keen  and  accurate  to  avoid 
knowing  this,  sensibilities  too  quick  to  escape  suffering, 
possibly  there  came  to  him  regret  modified  by  just  pride 
of  conscious  worth,  endured  with  quiet  philosophy,  tem- 
pered by  silent  contemplation  of  the  past, — and  came  also 
listlessness  of  purpose  to  succeed  himself  in  the  Senate. 

The  war  against  monopolies  he  had  initiated  in  local 
California  had  become  a  national  one  and  there  was  a  host 
of  giant  gladiators  in  the  political  field. 

1  In  Senate,  June  8,  1876. 

3  See  the  Springfield  Republican,  December,  1875  and  January,  1876. 


140  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Original,  faithful,  and  effective  during  long  public  ser- 
vice, he  welcomed  retirement  from  it. 

Nineteen  years  before  his  death,  during  the  delivery  of 
a  masterly  political  speech,1  he  said  : 

"  The  political  blows  I  have  taken  have  all  been  in  front.  It  is  not  often 
I  intrude  the  '  personal  pronoun,  first  person,  singular  number,'  but  I  claim 
the  privilege  to  do  so,  very  briefly. 

"  The  people  of  this  State  have  honored  me  above  my  deserts.  I  shall 
die  in  their  debt.  They  owe  me  nothing,  except,  when  the  time  shall  come, 
an  honorable  discharge,  and  I  think  I  have  earned  that.  The  path  I  have 
trodden  has  not  always  been  easy,  and  the  burden  I  have  carried  has  not 
always  been  light. 

1 '  I  dare  say  this  of  myself  in  my  public  career  :  there  has  never  been  a 
time  when  I  would  not  have  stood  uncovered  before  the  smith  at  his  stithy, 
the  hod-carrier  at  the  ladder,  or  the  prisoner  in  his  cell,  to  apologize  for  any 
wrong  done  by  mistake  or  inadvertence  ;  and  if  there  has  ever  been  a  time 
when  I  would  have  touched  my  hat,  or  abated  a  hair's  breadth  of  my  man- 
hood, in  the  presence  of  wealth  or  power,  for  the  sake  of  patronage  or 
place,  I  trust  its  memory  may  be  blotted  out, — and  I  am  too  old  to  change." 

EXTRACT  FROM  SPEECH  OF   HON.  HENRY  EDGERTON,  NOMINAT- 
ING   MR.    BOOTH    FOR    GOVERNOR,    AT    SACRAMENTO, 
JUNE    28,    1871. 

11 1  rise  to  discharge  one  of  the  most  pleasant  duties  of  my  life,  by  pre- 
senting to  this  convention  for  its  nomination  to  the  office  of  chief  magistrate 
a  distinguished  citizen — the  Hon.  Newton  Booth,  of  Sacramento.  Having 
in  view  either  those  personal  attributes  and  qualifications  which  dignify  and 
adorn  a  public  station,  or  the  important  considerations  involved  in  a  success- 
ful political  canvass,  it  would  be  difficult,  sir,  to  say  anything  of  Newton 
Booth  that  would  transcend  the  bounds  of  just  and  decorous  eulogy.    .    .    . 

"  A  merchant  of  the  highest  character  and  standing,  now  and  for  a  long 
time  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  first  commercial  houses  of  the  country  ;  a 
competent  lawyer  ;  a  legislator  of  extended  experience,  the  author  of  much, 
and  honorably  identified  with  more,  of  the  wisest  and  most  beneficent  legis- 
lation upon  our  statute-books  ;  familiar  with  politics,  but  a  politician  only 
in  the  highest  and  noblest  sense  of  that  much-abused  term  ;  one  who,  in 
the  front  ranks  of  your  scholars,  has  already  done  much  to  disseminate 
classic  literature  in  the  State  ;  a  first-rate  orator,  whose  pure  advocacy  of 
the  principles  of  the  Republican  party  has  done  much  in  the  past,  and  will 
yet  do  more  in  the  future  for  the  dissemination  and  triumph  of  those  princi- 
ples— he  stands  to-day,  sir,  in  my  humble  judgment,  in  point  of  fitness  for 

1  San  Francisco,  1879. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  141 

the  candidacy  to  which  he  is  proposed,  without  a  peer  within  the  pale  of 
the  Republican  party  of  California.  But,  sir,  he  possesses  elements  of 
availability  of  a  more  striking  character.  It  is  not  necessary  for  Newton 
Booth,  or  anybody  in  behalf  of  Newton  Booth,  to  define  his  position.  Dur- 
ing our  long  and  bloody  civil  war,  through  good  report  and  evil  report, 
whether  success  attended  or  calamity  befell  our  armies,  he  was  always  in 
the  front  rank  of  the  patriots  of  this  State.  And,  sir,  his  opinions  were 
fixed  and  expressed  in  more  than  a  score  of  original  and  imperishable 
orations." 

SPEECH    OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

The  President :  Gentlemen  of  the  convention,  I  have 
the  extreme  pleasure  of  presenting  to  you  the  Hon.  New- 
ton Booth,  of  Sacramento. 

Mr.  Booth  ascended  the  rostrum  and  said  :  After  this 
generous  reception  and  the  marks  of  devoted  friendship  I 
have  received,  I  should  be  more  or  less  than  the  man  I  am 
if  I  were  not  moved  almost  beyond  the  power  of  self- 
command.  If  my  sense  of  gratitude  were  boundless  as 
the  sea,  I  should  be  bankrupt  in  expression  as  I  stand  be- 
fore you  to-day.  Beggar  that  I  am,  I  am  even  poor  in 
thanks.  I  accept,  gentlemen,  the  nomination  for  Gov- 
ernor upon  the  platform  you  have  put  forth.  I  accept 
the  platform,  not  as  an  idle  formality,  not  as  a  stepping- 
stone  to  office,  but  from  conviction.  I  accept  it  as  the 
latest  expression  of  living  faith  of  the  party  to  which  I 
am  proud  to  belong. 

If  political  parties  are  anything  other  than  combina- 
tions to  seek  office,  they  are  public  opinion  organized  ; 
they  are  forces  whose  general  direction  is  fixed.  They 
can  be  judged  far  better  by  their  traditions,  instincts,  and 
governing  ideas  than  by  any  formal  declaration  of  princi- 
ples. Tried  by  this  test,  which  party  to-day  best  deserves 
the  confidence  and  regard  of  the  American  people, 
which  has  championed  the  great  measures  of  human  free- 
dom and  good  government,  which  has  endeavored  to 
direct  the  current  of  events  in  the  grand  channel  of  right, 
which  has  stood  as  a  bar  and  obstruction  until  it  has  been 


142  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

swept  forward  by  the  sweeping  tide  ?  Both  parties  con- 
tinue to-day  the  same  organization  that  they  did  during 
the  war.  Each  stands  upon  the  history  it  has  made.  Can 
the  Republican  party  ground  arms  in  the  presence  of  its 
old  antagonist  ?  We  have  heard  much  of  the  "  new  de- 
parture "  of  the  Democracy.  Perhaps  it  was  time  for  the 
Democratic  party  to  depart.  Sir,  when  a  political  party 
abandons  its  old  ideas,  its  instincts,  and  its  traditions,  it 
departs  this  life.  For  the  first  time  in  history  we  have 
the  remarkable  case  of  a  suicide  that  insists  upon  holding 
an  inquest  upon  its  own  body.  Sir,  the  Republican  party 
needs  no  "  new  departure."  It  stands  upon  its  history. 
It  has  written  no  chapters  that  it  desires  to  tear  out. 
Every  page  is  emblazoned  with  glory.  Let  the  record 
stand  ;  the  party  will  stand  by  the  record.  Ay,  they  tell 
us  they  will  accept  the  policy  of  reconstruction  as  a  hard 
necessity.  We  adopt  it  as  a  living  truth.  They  regard  it 
as  an  obstruction  which  must  be  over-climbed  in  the  road 
to  office  ;  we  as  a  sacred  principle  baptized  in  the  best 
blood  of  the  land.  The  late  Democratic  candidate  for 
Governor  in  Massachusetts  was  right  when  he  said  the 
American  people  would  never  abandon  the  attitude  of 
hostile  vigilance,  which  is  the  true  interpretation  of  the 
policy  of  this  administration,  while  one  of  their  war 
trophies  was  threatened.  And  what  are  these  war  tro- 
phies ?  They  are  not  captured  citadels  and  cities,  not 
guns  and  flags  ;  they  are  moral  trophies — a  republic  saved 
from  destruction,  freedom  made  the  law  of  the  land.  By 
these  trophies  the  Republican  party  proposes  to  stand 
guard  while  the  stars  shine. 

We  do  not  propose  now,  nor  at  any  time,  to  rekindle 
the  passions  of  the  war  ;  but  we  cannot  forget  its  memo- 
ries, and  we  would  be  false  to  ourselves,  false  to  the  dead, 
if  we  did  not  claim  all  the  moral  force  bequeathed  to  us 
by  the  past,  to  accomplish  every  attainable  good  in  the 
present  and  in  the  future.     But  grand  as  is  the  heritage 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 43 

of  glory  that  has  come  down  to  us  by  the  past,  we  cannot 
live  upon  that ;  we  must  meet  living  questions  as  living 
men,  looking  forward  to  the  grand  future.  The  party 
has  saved  the  government  from  an  open  foe  ;  it  must  also 
protect  it  from  an  insidious  enemy.  The  rebellion  struck 
with  bared  arm  in  broad  day,  and  with  naked  sword. 
There  is  a  danger  more  alarming  because  more  subtle, 
that  comes  as  the  stealthy  poisoner,  creeping  in  the  dark : 
the^ corrupting  power  of  money  in  shaping  legislation  and 
controlling  political  action.  For  us  this  question  of  sub- 
sidy~and  anti-subsidy  has  a  far  broader  significance  than 
any  partial  application  would  assign  to  it.  It  means 
purity  of  legislation  ;  it  means  integrity  of  courts  ;  it 
means  the  sacredness  of  private  rights  ;  it  means  that 
whatever  a  man  has,  whether  it  be  broad  acres  or  a  nar- 
row home,  whatever  he  has  acquired  by  his  industry  and 
enterprise,  is  his ;  his  though  he  stands  in  a  minority  of 
one  ;  his  against  the  power  of  the  world  ;  no  majority,  no 
legislation,  however  potent,  can  make  a  private  wrong  a 
public  right.  It  means  this :  Shall  this  government  be 
and  remain  a  mighty  agency  of  civilization,  the  protector 
of  all,  or  shall  it  be  run  as  a  close  corporation  to  enrich 
the  few  ? 

Our  party  recognizing  public  sentiment  upon  the  ques- 
tion, proposes  to  organize  that  sentiment  into  a  living 
force  so  that  the  sacredness  of  individual  right  shall  be 
protected  by  all  the  muniments  of  constitutional  law. 
The  instincts  of  our  party  are  unchanged.  In  the  recent 
European  war  we  instinctively  felt  that  the  principle  of 
the  "  solidarity  of  peoples  "  would  be  vindicated  ;  that  the 
old  artificial  system  of  balance  of  power,  fruitful  in  wars 
and  kingcraft,  would  be  destroyed  ;  that  nations  would 
rest  not  upon  a  central  pivot,  but  upon  broad,  natural 
foundations  ;  and  if  anywhere  on  earth  there  is  a  move- 
ment of  liberal  thought,  the  Republican  party  is  in  sym- 
pathy with  that  movement.     If  there  is  an  aspiration  for 


144  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

human  freedom,  the  Republican  party  is  in  sympathy  with 
that  aspiration.  The  country,  the  world,  cannot  afford 
that  so  generous  an  impulse  in  human  forces  should  die  ; 
and  it  will  not  die.  Let  it  be  kept  in  accord  with  the 
great  moral  laws  ordained  for  the  government  of  the 
world.  Its  defeats  will  be  for  a  day,  and  its  triumphs  for 
all  time. 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT   PLATT'S   HALL,    SAN   FRANCISCO,    AUGUST  27,    1872. 

The  presidential  election  in  the  United  States  is  an  his- 
torical event.  Other  elections  are  local ;  this  is  national. 
In  its  significance  it  is  more  than  national.  It  is  the  only 
occasion  upon  which  the  voice  of  the  whole  people  is 
heard.  It  is  the  popular  verdict  upon  the  conduct  of  pub- 
lic affairs — an  open  declaration  of  future  policy — and  it 
challenges  the  attention  of  the  world.  We  are  apt  at  all 
times  to  lose,  in  some  degree,  the  sense  of  individual  re- 
sponsibility when  we  act  in  masses,  but  if  there  be  any 
political  duty  in  the  discharge  of  which  the  citizen  should 
exercise  his  deliberate  judgment  and  highest  patriot- 
ism, it  is  in  casting  his  vote  for  President, — not  so 
much  on  account  of  the  transcendent  dignity  of  the 
office  as  of  the  importance  which,  by  reason  of  our 
national  traditions,  the  nature  of  our  institutions,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  people,  is  necessarily  attached  to  the  event 
of  the  election.  The  success  of  this  man  or  that  man,  the 
appointment  of  one  set  of  men  or  another  to  office,  is  of 
little  moment  save  to  the  individuals  themselves  (and  of 
less  to  them  than  they  are  apt  to  imagine),  but  the  deci- 
sion of  the  American  people,  the  expression  of  their  will, 
is  of  the  highest  consequence.  If  we  were  an  older  peo- 
ple, if  the  lines  of  our  policy  had  been  worn  by  imme- 
morial custom  into  grooves,  and  our  habits  of  thought 
had  become  traditional ;  if  we  were  a  stationary  people, 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  I45 

without  constant  influx  of  new  life  within,  and  a  broaden- 
ing horizon  of  career  without ;  if  the  tenor  of  our  history 
had  been  even,  unbroken  by  sudden  changes  and  great 
upheavals,  the  national  election  might  be  one  of  the  forms 
and  pageants  of  government.  But  now,  in  the  flush  and 
rapid  growth  of  youth,  our  institutions  still  experiments, 
close  behind  us  the  revolution  which  threatened  to  en- 
gulph,  now  just  entering  upon  a  policy  of  universal  free- 
dom, now  having  cut  loose  from  the  moorings  of  preju- 
dice and  set  sail  upon  the  open  sea  beneath  the  divinely 
guiding  stars,  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  its 
importance. 

We  enter  upon  this  election  under  circumstances  so  pe- 
culiar they  are  without  a  parallel  in  our  history — possibly 
in  any  history. 

Now,  as  for  the  past  sixteen  years,  the  country  is 
divided  into  two  great  parties — two  politically  hostile 
camps — the  Republicans,  the  party  of  ideas  ;  the  Demo- 
cratic, the  party  of  discipline.  The  latter  in  the  time  of 
its  power  had  fully  identified  itself  with  the  interests  of 
the  institution  of  slavery.  The  logical  conclusion  of  its 
doctrines  was  reached  in  the  South  in  secession.  In  the 
North  it  staked  its  existence  upon  the  pledge  that  the 
Union  could  not  be  restored  and  slavery  destroyed.  It 
stood  in  deadly  hostility  to  every  measure  which  in  the 
past  twelve  years  has  become  a  part  of  the  fundamental 
policy  of  the  government.  It  survived  the  institution 
with  which  it  was  identified,  the  principles  upon  which  it 
was  based,  by  the  very  force  of  its  discipline.  To-day, 
after  an  ostensible  abandonment  of  its  political  tenets, 
with  its  local,  State,  and  national  organization  complete 
as  ever,  in  perfect  working  order,  it  adopts  for  its  leader 
the  man  who  of  all  others  had  most  hated  and  reviled  it, 
and  hopes  to  triumph  by  a  piece  of  political  strategy. 
"  There  is  something  in  this  more  than  natural,  if  philoso- 
phy could  find  it  out !  " 


146  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

No  progressive  party  can  remain  long  in  power  and  give 
entire  satisfaction  to  all  its  members.  With  some  prog- 
ress will  be  too  slow  ;  with  others  too  fast.  There  will 
be  idealists,  and  there  will  be  adventurers.  The  right 
measure  will  not  be  passed  at  the  right  time.  The  right 
man  will  not  always  get  the  right  place.  The  offices  will 
not  go  round.  Real  merit  will  be  sometimes  overlooked, 
and  there  will  be  soldiers  of  fortune  disappointed  in  the 
hope  of  position.  Among  leaders  there  will  be  personal 
jealousies,  and  among  the  people  some  degree  of  impa- 
tience, because  the  work  of  years  is  not  accomplished  in 
days.  No  political  party  is  perfect ;  none  is  likely  to  be 
while  there  is  as  much  human  nature  in  the  world  as  now. 
Where  there  is  free  thought  there  will  be  differences  of 
opinion,  and  the  Republican  party  is  pre-eminently  a 
party  of  free-thought  and  self-criticism.  There  are  always 
men,  too,  who  attach  an  exaggerated  importance  to  minor 
differences  of  opinion — just  as  we  forget  the  general 
health  of  the  whole  body  in  thinking  of  a  sore  finger  or 
an  aching  tooth. 

The  various  elements  of  dissatisfaction  in  the  Repub- 
lican party  were  represented  in  the  Cincinnati  Convention. 
As  a  movement  against  the  party  it  was  not  so  formidable 
as  that  attempted  under  President  Johnson.  After  twelve 
years'  lease  of  power  the  only  wonder  is  it  was  not  more 
formidable.  The  nucleus  around  which  it  was  gathered 
seemed  to  be  personal  opposition  to  the  man  who  was  so 
largely  the  choice  of  the  party  that  his  nomination  for 
President  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  The  President  was 
arraigned  for  the  execution  of  laws  by  men  who  had  as- 
sisted to  pass  them — by  men  who  would  have  moved  his 
impeachment  if  he  had  refused  to  execute  them. 

It  is  not  for  us  to  pass  judgment  on  that  convention 
and  say  whether  it  was  controlled  by  its  better  or  worse 
elements,  by  interested  or  disinterested  men — within  or 
without.       It  put  forth  an  "  Address  to  the  American 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 47 

People,"  and  a  platform  of  resolutions.  With  severe  im- 
partiality it  gave  the  former  to  the  Democrats,  the  latter 
to  the  Republicans  with  an  "  if."  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  its  nomination  took  the  country  by  surprise. 

Of  Horace  Greeley  I  have  no  reproachful  word  to  utter. 
His  past  is  secure  from  all  but  himself.  Few  men  are  bet- 
ter known  to  the  American  people  in  his  strength  and  his 
weakness,  his  greatness  and  his  foibles.  Two  master  pas- 
sions seemed  to  have  struggled  for  supremacy  in  his  past 
life — love  of  freedom  and  hatred  of  Democrats.  If  the 
first  was  ideal,  the  latter  was  personal  and  vindictive.  His 
warmest  friends  find  in  him  much  to  extenuate,  and  his 
bitterest  enemies  something  to  admire.  If  he  was  be- 
wildered in  the  civil  revolution  he  had  so  often  invoked ; 
if  his  face  blanched  at  the  battle  he  had  so  often  pre- 
dicted ;  if  he  had  not  strength  to  seize  the  golden  oppor- 
tunity he  had  so  longed  for  from  afar,  we  will  never  forget 
his  early  services  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  Whatever  may 
be  the  result  of  this  contest,  he  will  go  into  history  as  the 
journalist,  the  editor,  and  his  monument  will  be  the  New 
York  Tribune.  His  life-work  was  finished  when  he 
accepted  a  Democratic  nomination  for  President.  Ambi- 
tion is  said  to  be  "  the  disease  of  noble  minds  " ;  it  is 
also  the  disease  of  youth,  and  like  other  diseases  that 
belong  to  early  life,  when  it  attacks  the  aged,  is  apt  to 
be  fatal. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  "  Liberal  "  movement 
alone,  without  the  Baltimore  endorsement,  would  not 
have  had  strength  enough  to  carry  one  election  precinct 
in  the  United  States.  As  a  popular  movement,  originat- 
ing with  the  people,  as  an  effort  to  form  a  third  party, 
it  was  a  failure.  It  would  have  had  no  inception  but  for 
the  hope  that  it  would  be  coddled  into  life  by  the  De- 
mocracy. Whatever  strength,  whatever  life,  whatever  hope 
of  success  it  has,  come  from  Baltimore  and  not  Cincinnati ; 
and  Baltimore  as  promptly  approved,  ratified,  and  con- 


I48  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

firmed  as  though  the  whole  were  one  scheme.     Perhaps 
it  was,  and  Tammany  its  author. 

I  congratulate  you,  my  fellow-citizens  ;  I  congratulate 
the  Democracy  ;  I  congratulate  humanity  ;  I  hail  it  as  an 
auspicious  day,  when,  under  any  circumstances,  for  any 
purpose,  the  representatives  of  the  Democratic  party,  in 
convention  assembled,  can  subscribe  to  sentiments  like 
these,  which  are  a  part  of  the  Cincinnati  resolutions  : 

"  We  recognize  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  and  hold  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  Government,  in  its  dealings  with  the  people,  to  mete  out  equal 
and  exact  justice  to  all,  of  whatever  race,  color,  or  persuasion,  religious  or 
political." 

"We  pledge  ourselves  to  maintain  the  union  of  these  States,  emancipation 
and  enfranchisement,  and  to  oppose  any  reopening  of  the  questions  settled 
by  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  amendments  of  the  Constitution." 

"The  public  credit  must  be  maintained,  and  we  denounce  repudiation  in 
every  form  and  guise." 

"We  remember  with  gratitude  the  heroism  and  sacrifices  of  the  soldiers 
and  sailors  of  the  republic,  and  no  act  of  ours  shall  ever  detract  from  their 
justly  earned  fame  or  the  full  reward  of  their  patriotism." 

The  world  moves  !  If  this  new  political  shibboleth 
should  sometimes  stick  in  "  an  old-liner's  "  throat,  like 
Macbeth's  "  amen,"  still  the  effort  to  pronounce  it  will 
do  him  good.  Perhaps  the  convention  could  have  done 
but  one  thing  better — to  have  Whereased  every  principle 
the  party  had  contended  for  in  twelve  years  past  that  has 
been  overwhelmed  in  the  rising  tide  of  events,  and  Resolved 
that  the  party  is  disbanded  and  its  members  released  from 
allegiance. 

The  earnest,  sincere  acceptance  by  the  Democracy  of 
the  Cincinnati  platform  as  a  whole  would  have  been  a 
moral  triumph  for  the  Republican  party  equal  to  its 
highest  achievements  in  the  field.  But  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  lip-service  and  heart-service  ;  between  creed 
and  faith ;  between  the  letter  which  killeth  and  the  spirit 
that  maketh  alive.  There  is  a  difference  between  accept- 
ing a  situation  as  a  hard  necessity  and  embracing  it  as  a 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  149 

joyful  opportunity.  There  is  a  difference  between  the 
spirit  which  says,  "The  lines  are  hard,  but  it  is  so 
written,"  and  that  which  says,  "  Before  ever  the  world 
was  it  was  true  ;  though  the  foundations  of  the  world 
should  pass  away  it  will  remain  true  ;  therefore,  it  is  so 
written ! " 

These  principles  are  the  trophies  of  the  Republican 
party.  It  achieved  them  in  tribulation  and  trial.  It 
clung  to  them  when  it  was  treading  the  wine-press.  It 
bore  them  in  the  fires  of  battle — in  the  darkness  of  de- 
feat it  would  not  part  with  them  ;  and  washed  white  in 
the  blood  of  the  faithful,  it  flung  them  to  the  glad  light 
in  the  triumphant  glory  of  victory  !  Come  weal  or  come 
woe,  come  joy  or  sorrow,  they  are  a  part  of  its  history 
forever. 

The  practical  question  before  the  American  people  is, 
shall  the  Democratic  party  succeed,  with  a  platform  and 
candidate  it  has  accepted  for  the  sake  of  success,  or  the 
Republican,  with  principles  which  are  its  traditions,  and  a 
candidate  who  is  its  spontaneous  choice  ?  It  is  not  the 
office  of  President  which  is  the  great  stake,  it  is  the 
prestige  of  victory — the  control  of  the  Government,  its 
legislative  as  well  as  executive  departments,  its  state  and 
local  as  well  as  general  administration.  It  is  the  moral 
effect  upon  our  peace  and  tranquillity  at  home,  and  on  the 
progress  of  free  institutions  abroad.  Bear  in  mind  there 
has  been  no  pentecostal  fire  to  convert  the  masses  of  the 
Democracy  to  new  light.  They  receive  the  new  doctrines 
as  a  party,  not  as  men  ;  as  the  Roman  people  were  sup- 
posed to  change  their  religion  when  it  suited  the  pleasure 
of  the  Emperor  to  change  his.  They  have  been  turned 
over  in  gross,  as  a  colonel  in  the  army  is  reported  to  have 
detailed  a  company  to  be  baptized.  They  have  been 
converted,  not  by  a  change  of  heart,  but  by  a  political 
edict,  by  a  resolution  in  convention  ;  and  a  resolution  can 
undue  what  a  resolution  has  done. 


150  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Now,  under  which  general  administration  will  there  be 
greater  national  stability,  individual  security,  and  personal 
freedom  ?  The  one  is  assured — the  other  experimental. 
Why,  my  Liberal  Republican  friend,  looking  for  impossi- 
ble perfection  in  a  very  impossible  quarter,  do  you  believe 
that  Horace  Greeley  can  control  the  Democratic  party, 
once  in  power  ?  That  the  mountain  will  come  to  Ma- 
homet? That  Jonah  will  swallow  the  whale?  Under 
such  an  administration  the  old  questions  will  arise,  and 
will  not  down  at  the  bidding  of  any  man.  We  have  not 
yet  reached  the  millennial  era  when  the  Government  can 
be  administered  without  party  organization.  Tyler  and 
Johnson  both  assayed  it,  and  both  were  compelled  to 
throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  the  opposition,  and  the 
latter  learned,  as  Greeley  will  learn  if  he  should  attempt 
the  same  role  with  the  Democracy  that  Johnson  did  with 
the  Republicans,  how  powerless  an  executive  is  against  a 
dominant  party  controlling  Congress.  How  easy  it  will 
be  for  the  party  "  to  palter  with  a  double  sense,  and  keep 
the  word  of  promise  to  the  ear  but  break  it  to  the  hope." 
How  easy  to  leave  the  constitutional  amendments  undis- 
turbed, but  refuse  the  legislation  necessary  to  their  execu- 
tion— to  pay  pensions  to  the  Union  soldiers  and  also  to 
the  rebel.  We  all  profess  to  believe  in  local  and  State 
self-government.  With  the  Republican  this  means  that 
all  government  should  be  as  near  to  the  people  as  practi- 
cable ;  that  San  Francisco  should  govern  itself  in  all  muni- 
cipal concerns  ;  that  California  should  govern  itself  in  all 
matters  of  State  policy  ;  but  that  there  is  a  reserved  power 
in  the  General  Government  strong  enough  to  protect  it 
from  all  assaults  within  and  without,  and  that  it  is  its  duty 
to  guarantee  to  all  its  citizens  liberty  and  equality  before 
the  law,  and  to  throw  over  the  humblest  and  weakest  its 
broad,  protecting  shield  whenever  his  rights  as  a  citizen 
are  assaulted.  With  the  Democrat  it  means  that  the  State 
has  the  right  to  judge  of  the  constitutional  limitations  of 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  151 

the  General  Government,  and  to  absolve  itself  from  alle- 
giance whenever  it  believes  they  are  transcended.  What- 
ever may  be  done  or  left  undone  in  regard  to  these 
questions,  the  fact  that  they  become  open  questions  is  the 
greatest  calamity. 

There  is  no  peace,  no  absolute  safety,  from  the  questions 
that  brought  on  and  grew  out  of  the  war  while  the  Demo- 
cratic party  continues  as  a  distinctive  political  organiza- 
tion, and  the  real  issue  now  is,  shall  that  party  be  restored 
to  power,  by  a  political  coup  d'dtat,  or  shall  it  be  destroyed. 
I  know  of  no  destruction  so  complete  and  certain  as  its 
support  of  Horace  Greeley,  followed  by  defeat.  I  am 
anxious — more  than  anxious — for  that  event,  because  I 
desire  that  whatever  there  is  of  intelligence,  ability,  and 
patriotism  (and  I  do  not  disparage  or  underestimate  them) 
there  is  in  the  members  of  the  party  should  be  released 
from  the  thraldom  of  its  iron  discipline,  taken  up  into 
new  and  living  forms,  utilized  in  the  service  of  progress, 
and  not  be  dedicated  to  the  illusions  of  the  past — to  the 
worship  of  an  idol  which  has  been  dethroned  and  should 
be  ground  into  powder. 

For  myself  I  go  further,  and  do  not  consider  it  desirable 
or  possible  that  any  political  party,  cemented  together  in 
civil  war,  should  be  continued  after  the  entire  moral  results 
of  that  war  have  been  secured.  After  the  rebel  armies 
surrendered  the  Union  armies  disbanded.  They  could  not 
before.  No  promise,  no  truce  would  have  justified  it.  The 
Republican  party  cannot  afford  to  disband  in  the  presence 
of  its  old  antagonist,  but  the  dissolution  of  the  Democratic 
party,  in  the  logic  of  events,  will  be  followed  by  that  of 
the  Republican.  New  organizations  will  form  themselves 
around  living  issues.  There  will  be  questions  enough  in 
the  future  to  differ  about,  and  difficulties  great  enough  to 
challenge  the  highest  patriotism  and  abilities  of  all. 

There  are  those  who  affect  to  believe  there  is  danger  that 
the  military  will  subvert  the  civil  power  of  the  country. 


152  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  common-sense  of  the  people  rejects  this  as  a  night- 
mare dream.  There  never  was  a  time,  from  Washington 
to  Grant,  when  any  military  leader  could  usurp  the  civil 
functions  of  government,  and  no  man,  however  high  his 
position,  or  venerated  his  name,  deserves  any  credit — 
except  for  common-sense — for  not  attempting  it.  There 
is  no  danger  that  we  will  lose  the  forms  of  a  republic. 
There  is  a  danger  that  we  may  ultimately  retain  only  the 
forms.  Caleb  Cushing's  famous  "  man  on  horseback  "  is 
as  distant  and  mythical  as  ever.  The  danger  comes  from 
another  direction.  The  eagles  on  the  coin,  not  in  the 
standard,  are  its  badge.  It  is  gold,  not  steel,  which 
threatens.  It  shapes  itself  in  the  endeavor  to  make  gov- 
ernment and  law  subservient  to  private  rather  than  public 
good — to  special  rather  than  general  interests.  The  con- 
test will  be  between  associated  capital  and  popular  rights. 
Let  the  field  be  cleared  for  that  action,  and  let  the  dead 
past  bury  its  dead  ! 

But  now,  the  immediate  question  of  the  hour,  the  one 
vital  question  involved  in  the  present  election  is — Shall 
we  secure  what  we  have  gained  in  the  name  of  Liberty 
and  Union,  and  take  a  bond  of  Fate  that  it  shall  never  be 
forfeited  ? 

"The  destruction  of  Carthage  is  the  safety  of  Rome." 
During  our  civil  war  there  were  a  great  many  theories 
as  to  how  it  should  be  conducted.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  studying  maps  and  planning  campaigns.  Almost 
every  officer  and  every  war-correspondent  had  a  theory. 
There  was  the  famous  " anaconda  theory"  of  General 
Scott,  the  starvation  theory,  the  "  on-to-Richmond 
theory,"  the  theory  of  cutting  the  Confederacy  in  two,  of 
capturing  its  strategic  points,  of  taking  its  capital ;  over- 
running its  territory,  of  sealing  up  its  ports.  And  there 
were  men  who  were  willing  "to  undertake  the  job  by 
contract."  Men  who  "  never  set  a  squadron  in  the  field 
nor  knew  the  division  of  a  battle  more  than  a  spinster," 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 53 

had  their  theories,  and  put  them  forth  in  most  excellent 
English.  One  officer,  the  Colonel  of  an  Illinois  regiment, 
and  scarcely  known  beyond  it,  had  his  theory.  It  was  a 
homespun  affair,  and  involved  only  good  sense  and  hard 
fighting ;  it  was  that  the  strength  of  the  Confederacy  was 
in  its  armies,  and  that  they  should  be  sought  and  fought, 
until  they  surrendered  or  disbanded.  What  he  said  or 
thought  was  or  seemed  a  matter  of  little  consequence,  for 
the  eyes  of  the  country  were  not  fixed  upon  him  and  his 
name  was  not  even  in  the  newspapers.  He  afterwards 
had  "  a  wonderful  run  of  luck."  From  an  obscure 
Colonel  he  became  General  and  Commander-in-Chief. 
Perhaps  not  a  military  genius,  he  had  the  safer  qualities 
that  belong  to  eminent  good  sense  and  a  lucky  faculty 
of  doing  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time.  No  one  has 
accused  him  of  being  an  eloquent  man,  but  somehow 
sharp,  pithy  sentences  seem  struck  from  him,  as  sparks 
from  the  flint,  which  never  die  out  of  the  memory.  It 
was  he  who  said  :  "  I  purpose  to  move  on  your  works 
immediately."  "  My  terms  are  unconditional  surrender." 
"  I  intend  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  sum- 
mer." It  was  he  who  gave  that  very  unmilitary  order  to 
Sheridan,  "  Push  things."  It  was  he  who  said  to  the 
vanquished  rebel  army  (and  what  grander  thing  has  been 
said  on  this  continent,  or  any  other?):  "Go  home  and 
obey  the  laws  and  you  shall  not  be  molested."  It  was  he 
who  said  :     "  Let  us  have  peace." 

There  was  another  man,  who,  at  the  commencement  of 
the  war,  as  a  journalist,  had  the  ear  of  the  country.  Few 
men  in  the  North  had  done  more  in  moulding  public 
opinion  ;  few  had  been  more  steadfast  as  the  champion  of 
equal  rights.  If  the  Northern  heart  was  fired,  few  had 
done  more  to  fire  it,  for  his  challenge  to  slavery  was  one 
of  scorn  and  defiance.  When  the  war  was  inevitable,  he 
thought  of  peace ;  and  when  it  raged  in  mid-battle,  and 
to  return  was  more  tedious  than  to  go  on,  he  sought  the 


154  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

magnificent  scenery  of  Niagara — to  negotiate  a  peace  on 
private  account. 

We  blame  him  not — believe  he  was  honest  in  all.  He 
is  not  the  first  man,  in  fact  or  fable,  who  has  stood  amazed, 
terrified,  and  appalled  at  the  spirit  he  has  invoked.  He 
is  not  the  first  great  teacher  who  has  proved  weak  and 
vacillating  in  action. 

Again  we  are  to  choose  between  two  policies — victory 
and  compromise.  Defeated  now,  the  Democratic  party  will 
disintegrate,  and  both  the  war  parties  will  soon  disappear 
from  our  politics.  Then  we  shall  have  peace.  There 
will  be  no  hands  clasped  over  a  bloody  chasm ;  the  chasm 
will  be  closed  and  hidden  from  sight  by  grass  as  green 
and  sweet  as  ever  sprang  from  a  patriot's  grave ! 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  PLATT'S  HALL,  SAN  FRANCISCO,  AUGUST  12,  1874. 

THE   RAILROAD    PROBLEM   IN  AMERICAN   POLITICS. 

Fellow-Citizens  :  The  issues  involved  in  the  political 
canvass  of  this  year  are  peculiar,  and  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  to  be  decided  anomalous  in  American  his- 
tory. We  shall  err,  however,  if  we  suppose  these  issues 
and  conditions  are  confined  to  California ;  they  are  com- 
mon to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Everywhere 
there  is  a  deep  pervading  feeling  that  old  things  are  pass- 
ing away ;  that  the  nation  confronts  new  questions  and 
difficulties — that  again  the  Sphinx's  riddle  is  propounded 
to  us,  which  we  must  read  or  be  destroyed.  And  yet 
when  we  come  to  consider  these  questions  closely  we  find 
them  new  indeed  in  our  history  and  new  in  form,  but  in 
substance  and  universal  history  they  are  as  old  as  history 
itself ;  it  is  a  new  phase  of  the  old,  old  contest  between 
prerogative  and  personal  freedom — between  the  power  of 
the  strong  to  take,  and  the  right  of  each  man  to  his  own. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  155 

In  the  presence  of  new  dangers  party  ties  are  relaxed. 
Where  they  bind  together  it  is  rather  from  social  affilia- 
tion than  the  power  of  political  allegiance.  From  force  of 
habit  and  personal  association,  we  look  to  our  old  politi- 
cal leaders  and  comrades  for  guidance  and  counsel ;  but 
pass  along  the  street,  take  the  men  as  you  meet  them,  lis- 
ten to  their  frank  avowals,  and  you  will  find  that  the  old 
party  discipline,  which  was  wont  to  marshal  its  hosts,  like 
contending  armies,  is  destroyed.  Gather  together  a  repre- 
sentative, intelligent  assemblage  like  this,  composed  of 
Republicans  and  Democrats,  poll  it,  and  you  will  find  that 
on  the  living  questions  of  the  hour,  where  there -are  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  men  no  longer  differ  as  Democrats  and 
Republicans,  but  as  men  of  independent  convictions  ;  and 
those  who  prefer  to  remain  with  old  organizations  simply 
feel  that  for  the  present  there  is  nowhere  else  to  go,  and 
hope  to  accomplish  new  purposes  with  old  forms.  This 
is  not  a  local,  but  a  general  truth,  and  there  is  a  general 
feeling  that  a  warfare  should  cease  whose  motive  and 
meaning  have  gone. 

It  is  natural  under  circumstances  like  these  that  men 
who  believe  that  political  parties  are  simply  incorporations 
for  the  purpose  of  paying  salaries  to  directors  and  divid- 
ing offices  among  stockholders,  should  begin  to  inquire, 
11  What  man  hath  done  this?  "  and  to  look  about  for  some 
victim  for  their  impotent  wrath.  Sir,  no  man  hath  done 
it !  They  might  as  well  seek  for  the  hunter  who  built  his 
camp-fire  on  the  upper  Mississippi  to  account  for  the  ice- 
gorge  that  comes  crashing  and  grinding  down  in  a  Spring 
flood  after  an  April  thaw.  There  are  moral  forces  in  so- 
ciety which  can  no  more  be  controlled  by  conventions  and 
resolutions  than  the  tempest  can  be  stayed  by  a  proclama- 
tion of  peace.  While  parties  sincerely  represent  differ- 
ences of  opinion  upon  great  and  living  political  questions  ; 
while  they  continue  the  outward  embodiments  of  princi- 
ples, the  representatives  of  ideas ;  while  they  are  forces 


156  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

moving  openly  to  the  accomplishment  of  a  given  result, 
they  may  err,  may  be  wrong,  but  they  will  live.  No  de- 
sertion of  leaders,  no  betrayal  of  principles  can  destroy 
them  or  perceptibly  abate  their  strength.  When  they 
cease  to  be  these  things,  and  become  "  a  pipe  for  fortune's 
finger  to  sound  what  stop  she  please  "  on,  no  man,  though 
he  combined  in  one  the  leadership  of  Clay,  the  eloquence 
of  Webster,  the  iron  will  of  Jackson,  the  philosophical 
prescience  of  Jefferson,  and  the  moral  weight  of  Washing- 
ton, can  hold  them  together.  An  agreement  of  purpose 
— genuine — sincere — is  as  necessary  to  their  cohesion  as 
is  the  law  of  gravitation  to  hold  the  world  in  shape,  or  the 
hidden  force  of  life  to  keep  corruption  from  the  corporal 
frame. 

Nor  can  political  parties  be  manufactured  to  order  by 
joining  and  dove-tailing  materials  upon  a  given  plan.  If 
they  have  any  value  at  all  they  are  living  growths,  not 
mechanical  forms.  In  political  as  in  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
the  preaching  of  doctrine  precedes  organization,  and  with 
the  acceptance  of  doctrine  the  organization  arises,  we  can 
scarcely  see  how  or  when.  Yesterday  it  was  not,  to-day 
it  is.  Yesterday  it  was  a  spirit  diffusive  as  the  air  and  as 
impalpable  ;  to-day  it  is  strength  incarnate — embodied 
power.  You  need  have  no  fear,  my  friends,  if  your  con- 
victions are  deep,  sincere,  and  truthful,  that  they  will  not 
find  form,  expression,  and  triumph.  Where  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together  for  a  good  cause,  the  all-compelling 
spirit  that  organizes,  directs,  and  conquers,  is  also  in  their 
midst. 

There  is  no  lesson  enforced  by  history  with  more  em- 
phasis than  that  one  of  the  effects  of  a  great  war,  and 
especially  a  civil  war,  upon  a  republican  government,  is 
to  create  a  strong  tendency  to  a  centralization  of  power, 
to  raise  up  a  ruling  class  or  governing  man.  There  are 
many  philosophical  reasons  for  this.  One  is,  that  success 
in  war  depends  largely  upon  secrecy  in  council  and  unity 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 57 

in  action ;  and  the  thoughts  of  the  people  become  habitu- 
ated to  these  conditions,  until  that  is  tolerated  as  custom 
which  was  at  first  accepted  as  a  necessary  sacrifice. 
Another,  that  great  wars  generally  bring  to  the  surface 
great  leaders.  Another,  and  in  our  days  a  still  more 
potent  reason,  is  that  war  creates  great  social  inequalities, 
by  affording  opportunities  for  the  accumulation  of  gigantic 
and  overshadowing  fortunes ;  and  in  our  days  money  is 
power.  I  do  not  refer  now  to  the  fortunes  that  are  made 
immediately  out  of  the  operations  of  war,  and  the  vast 
disbursements  of  armies  ;  these,  indeed,  are  great,  but 
they  are  only  feeders  to  the  riches  realized  by  money- 
kings  out  of  the  general  disturbance  of  financial  laws  and 
accepted  values.  When  gold,  as  measured  by  a  standard 
fixed  by  the  government,  for  five  years  fluctuates  between 
par  and  two  hundred  and  eighty,  and  all  commercial  prices 
are  afloat,  unsettled,  so  that  no  day,  no  hour,  is  a  criterion 
for  another,  the  men  of  money,  sense,  and  instinct,  the  men 
of  coolness,  boldness,  sagacity,  and  training,  find  golden 
opportunities,  and  they  who  are  eminent  in  these  qualities 
make  for  themselves  thrones  of  gold.  We  sometimes  see 
in  shop  windows  cartoons  of  "  Before  and  After  the  War." 
If  we  could  see  correctly  represented  the  social  condition 
of  the  whole  country  "  before  and  after  the  war,"  we 
should  realize  what  a  vast  increase  there  has  been  in  the 
inequalities  of  fortune,  to  which  custom  deadens  our  sense. 
What  was  a  handsome  independence  is  now  scarcely  a 
ticket  into  the  upper  gallery,  the  third  tier  of  social  life. 
Private  fortunes  mount  up  into  millions — in  two  cases 
approximate  a  hundred  millions — and  corporations  con- 
trol revenues  which,  a  few  years  ago,  would  have  sufficed 
for  a  first-class  kingdom.  This  of  itself  would  present  a 
great  but  insidious  danger  to  the  Republic,  for  every 
student  of  history  knows  that  government  is  but  the  out- 
ward form  of  what  society  is  the  inward  spirit.  To  pre- 
serve a  republic,  there  must  be  a  general  sense  of  manly 


158  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

independence,  of  equality  of  right,  and  freedom  of 
personal  thought  and  action.  Great  accumulations  of 
riches  tend  to  destroy  this  by  creating  upon  the  one  hand 
the  feeling  of  dominance,  the  arrogance  of  power,  and 
upon  the  other  a  sense  of  dependence — the  servility  of 
want  ;  and  there  is  still  another  class — would  it  were 
smaller ! — hybrids  in  human  nature,  who  are  sycophants 
from  the  choice  of  their  own  slavish  and  subservient  souls. 

To  this  insidious  disease,  which  time  might  develop  or 
cure,  there  is  added  an  open  danger,  the  bold  attempt, 
stripped  now  of  all  disguise,  of  great  aggregations  of 
capital  to  control  the  Government  in  their  own  interest 
for  purposes  that  are  selfish  and  corrupt.  The  forms  of 
the  republic  are  to  be  retained,  but  its  spirit  destroyed. 
Like  Augustus  Caesar,  they  prefer  the  power  to  the  title 
of  king,  and  are  willing  we  should  toy  with  the  semblance 
while  the  substance  is  theirs.  This  is  the  danger  foreseen 
with  prophetic  power  by  Jackson.  What  was  then  a 
possibility,  is  now  a  fact ;  what  was  then  a  pigmy,  is  now 
a  giant. 

If  there  were  no  a  priori  reasons  to  teach  that  the  tend- 
ency to  concentrate  power  was  a  natural  outgrowth  of 
war,  the  experience  of  history  would  demonstrate  the 
fact.  In  the  times  and  countries  where  military  power  is 
the  highest  controlling  force,  the  gravitation  is  towards 
successful  leaders  and  chieftains,  and  the  military  class ; 
where  money  is  the  most  active  principle  it  is  towards 
aggregated  capital — or,  rather,  to  speak  with  exactness, 
toward  those  men  who  from  disposition  and  opportunity 
desire  and  are  able  to  make  the  operations  of  Government 
tributary  to  them,  so  that  they  shall  have  the  control  of  all 
property,  whether  they  claim  the  right  of  ownership  or  not. 

The  management  of  the  railroad  system  of  the  United 
States,  the  great  method  of  intercommunication  affecting 
all  property  and  every  value,  affords  an  opportunity  for 
this  of  which  history  furnishes  no  parallel. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 59 

Do  not  understand  me  to  say  now  that  the  owners  or 
managers  of  railroads  are  different  from  other  men,  or 
that  they  have  met  together  in  a  conspiracy  to  do  a  par- 
ticular thing,  and  are  methodically  proceeding  upon  a 
fixed  plan.  Great  social  or  political  changes  are  seldom 
or  never  wrought  in  that  way.  Forewarned  is  forearmed. 
Even  the  great  Napoleon  confessed  that  his  life  was  not 
governed  by  a  fixed  idea,  but  that  occasion  furnished  op- 
portunity until  he  believed  that  his  steps  were  controlled 
by  fate,  and  that  his  footprints  marked  the  path  of 
destiny.  Wherever  the  opportunity  of  irresponsible 
power  is  presented,  the  man  or  men,  or  principle  will  not 
be  wanting.  That  is  the  one  gap  in  human  affairs  which 
is  filled  as  soon  as  opened.  We  may  want  heroes  and 
poets,  statesmen,  orators,  and  inventors,  but  in  the  race 
of  self-seekers  the  strongest  always  survive. 

CHANGES   IN   METHODS  AND   PRINCIPLES   OF  TRANS- 
PORTATION CAUSED   BY   RAILROADS. 

Before  the  introduction  of  railroads,  all  public  highways 
by  land  and  water  were  free  to  all  upon  the  same  condi- 
tions. The  facilities  for  travel  and  transportation  were 
insufficient,  the  methods  often  crude  and  imperfect,  but 
the  means  were  free.  Exchanges  were  difficult,  but  they 
were  not  controlled.  With  the  introduction  of  railroads 
all  this  has  been  changed.  The  facilities  and  methods 
have  been  improved — exchanges  have  been  made  easy, 
but  the  freedom  is  gone.  The  means  are  in  the  hands  of 
a  power  that  claims  to  be,  and  seems  to  be,  independent 
of  law  and  public  opinion — a  power  which  is  often  able  to 
make  law  in  defiance  of  public  opinion.  It  is  as  easy  as 
it  is  brutal  to  say,  if  you  do  not  like  "  our  "  railroads  you 
can  go  back  to  ox-carts  and  pack-mules.  The  old  order 
of  things  has  been  destroyed  by  the  new.  The  railroad 
was  built  over  our  highways,    through  public   domain, 


l6o  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

through  private  possessions,  by  right  of  the  highest  pre- 
rogative of  government — the  right  to  take  private  property 
for  public  use  ;  it  was  built  for  public  use,  for  a  just, 
equitable,  and  necessary  public  use ;  and  with  a  full  con- 
sciousness that  it  was  to  destroy  the  old  order  of  things 
these  grants  and  concessions  were  made  to  it,  and  it  was 
armed  with  these  prerogatives.  It  is  as  easy  as  it  is 
insulting  to  say,  if  you  do  not  like  the  management  of 
"  our  "  railroads,  build  others  yourselves.  The  answer  is: 
The  men  who  use  railroads  are  not  able  to  build  them  ; 
most  of  them  are  poor,  and  those  who  are  not  have  their 
means  in  other  pursuits  ;  besides,  the  probabilities  are, 
you  did  not  build  with  your  money  the  road  you  control 
— the  road  may  have  made  you  rich,  your  riches  did  not 
make  the  road. 

For  many  years  it  has  not  been  the  American  fashion 
for  the  owners  of  railroads  to  put  their  own  money  into 
their  construction.  If  it  had  been  it  would  have  insured 
a  more  conservative  and  business-like  use  of  that  species 
of  property.  The  favorite  plan  has  been  to  get  grants  of 
land  and  loans  of  credit  from  the  General  Government ; 
guarantees  of  interest  from  the  State  Government ;  sub- 
scriptions and  donations  from  counties,  cities,  and  indi- 
viduals ;  and  upon  the  credit  of  all  this  issue  all  the  bonds 
that  can  be  put  upon  the  market  ;  make  a  close  estimate 
as  to  how  much  less  the  road  can  be  built  for  than  the 
sum  of  these  assets  ;  form  a  ring ;  call  it — say  the  Credit 
Mobilier  or  Contract  and  Finance  Company — for  the 
purpose  of  constructing  the  road,  dividing  the  bonds  that 
are  left ;  owning  the  lands,  owning  and  operating  the 
road  until  the  first  mortgage  becomes  due,  and  graciously 
allowing  the  Government  to  pay  principal  and  interest 
upon  the  loan  of  her  credit,  while  "  every  tie  in  the  road 
is  the  grave  of  a  small  stockholder."  Under  this  plan 
the  only  men  in  the  community  who  are  absolutely 
certain  not  to  contribute  any  money  to  the  construction 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  l6l 

of  the  road  are  those  who  own  and  control  it  when  it  is 
finished.  This  method  requires  a  certain  kind  of  genius, 
political  influence,  and  power  of  manipulation,  and 
furnishes  one  clew  to  the  reason  why  railroads  "  interfere 
in  politics."  The  personal  profit  upon  this  enterprise  is 
not  a  profit  upon  capital  invested,  but  the  result  of  brain- 
work — administrative  talent,  they  call  it,  in  a  particular 
direction.  When  the  road  is  built  capital  will  seek  it, 
but  until  the  whole  principle  of  subsidies  is  abolished 
it  will  not  seek  to  build  it.  It  is  easier,  more  delightful, 
and  more  profitable  to  build  with  other  peoples'  money 
than  our  own. 

Again,  I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  railroad  men  are  more 
selfish  than  other  men,  but  that  opportunities  are  offered 
— of  which  only  the  strong  can  avail  themselves — that 
might  make  Caesars  of  the  best,  and  that  no  men  are 
moderate  enough  to  be  trusted  with  arbitrary  power. 
When  Lord  Clive  was  before  a  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons  on  a  charge  of  having  enriched  himself  by 
the  plunder  of  India,  according  to  Macaulay,  he  justified 
his  acts,  "  described  in  vivid  language  the  situation  in 
which  his  victory  had  placed  him — a  great  prince  de- 
pendent on  his  pleasure  ;  an  opulent  city  afraid  of  being 
given  up  to  plunder ;  wealthy  bankers  bidding  against 
each  other  for  his  smiles ;  vaults  piled  with  gold  and 
jewels  thrown  open  to  him  alone — and  exclaimed  in  con- 
clusion, '  By ,  Mr.  Chairman,  at  this  moment  I  stand 

astonished  at  my  own  moderation.'  " 

To  form  some  idea  of  the  magnificence  of  the  whole 
prize  at  stake,  let  us  suppose  that  the  entire  railroad 
system  of  the  United  States  is  under  the  control  of  one 
company.  Nor  is  this  a  violent  presumption.  When  we 
consider  the  colossal  strides  of  the  New  York  Central  and 
Pennsylvania  Central  towards  this  result — the  latter  now 
owning  or  operating  more  than  four  thousand  miles, 
making  thousand-year  leases  and  guaranteeing  dividends 


1 62  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

for  thirty  generations — and  reflect  that  the  owners  of  the 
trunk  lines  control  their  feeders  as  absolutely  as  though 
they  owned  them,  it  will  not  seem  improbable  that  the 
whole  system  may  pass  under  one  general  management. 
Imagine  this  accomplished,  and  that  the  principle  that 
the  law  cannot  fix  rates  and  compel  uniformity  is  estab- 
lished— one  company  would  then  have  a  monopoly  of  all 
inland  transportation.  A,  B,  C,  and  D  own  the  coal 
mines  which  supply  the  city  of  New  York.  The  mines  of 
A  are  most  valuable  and  nearest  to  market.  He  finds  to 
his  astonishment  that  his  rivals  can  undersell  him,  and 
the  value  of  his  property  is  destroyed.  He  learns  upon 
inquiry  that  while  he  pays  freight  according  to  the 
published  tariff,  B,  C,  and  D,  have  special  rates.  He 
complains,  and  is  told  that  he  can  haul  his  coal  on  carts 
or  pack  it  on  mules.  He  remonstrates,  and  is  informed 
that  he  can  build  his  own  railroad.  Finally,  as  a  choice 
between  that  and  bankruptcy,  he  sells  or  gives  a  control- 
ling interest  in  his  mine  to  the  Directors  of  the  "  Mam- 
moth Railroad  Company." 

The  same  process  goes  on  successively  with  B,  C,  and 
D,  and  reaches  the  same  result.  Then  the  great  "  An- 
thracite Company  "  is  formed,  composed  of  the  Directors 
of  the  "  Mammoth  Railroad  Company  "  ;  a  stock  of  coal 
is  accumulated  in  the  city  ;  winter  has  come  ;  the  Director 
of  the  Mammoth  looks  in  the  mirror  and  says  to  the  image 
he  sees  there  :  "  Anthracite,  we  have  got  to  advance  your 
rates!  "  and  the  image  reflects  a  smile  and  a  bow;  coal 
advances  in  the  city,  but  there  is  no  panic.  Then  some 
new  regulation  is  established  at  the  mine  which  provokes 
a  strike.  The  rumor  goes  abroad :  "  No  more  coal." 
Then  there  are  panic  and  famine  prices  in  the  city — murder 
at  the  mine — and  the  poor  shiver  and  freeze  over  the  white 
ashes  in  their  grates,  that  Anthracite  may  swell  Mammoth's 
profits.  Some  one  ventures  to  say  this  is  wrong — this  is 
monopoly — and  the  whole  brood  of  parasites  that  bask 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 63 

in  the  social  sunshine  of  Mammoth's  favor  and  eat  the 
crumbs  that  fall  from  his  table,  join  in  the  cry :  "  He  is 
a  Communist !  a  demagogue  !  and  does  n't  believe  in  the 
rights  of  property  !  We  are  comfortable — Mammoth  gives 
us  gold  for  our  flattery.  '  After  us  the  deluge ' !  "  The 
sentiment  has  been  heard  before — it  was  on  the  lips  of  the 
courtiers  on  the  eve  of  the  French  revolution — and  then 
a  whisper  brought  down  the  avalanche. 

The  illustration  I  have  instanced  might  be  multiplied 
until  every  coal  field  in  the  United  States  would  be  under 
the  absolute  control  of  transportation — and  coal  is  the 
great  source  of  manufacturing  power,  as  it  is  also  the 
comfort  and  life  of  almost  every  home.  You  can  scarcely 
imagine  a  single  industry  that  would  not  be  affected,  might 
not  be  controlled,  by  a  monopoly  of  the  transportation  of 
coal. 

Does  the  result  I  have  sketched  seem  an  exaggeration? 
It  is  neither  impracticable  nor  unprecedented.  Do  you 
believe,  if  you  owned  a  coal  mine  on  the  line  of  the  Cen- 
tral Pacific  and  the  railroad  company  owned  another,  that 
you  could  compete  with  them  on  fair  terms  in  this  city  ? 
Under  such  circumstances,  would  not  their  arguments  to 
you  about  election  time  have  an  eloquent  persuasiveness 
of  more  than  mortal  utterance  ? 

Then  suppose  the  Mammoth  turns  its  attention  to  wheat. 
It  builds  warehouses  and  elevators.  The  wheat  passing 
through  these  can  have  "  special  rates,"  and  get  into  cars 
with  red  stars  or  blue  stars,  while  the  refractory  farmer 
finds  his  in  a  car  without  any  star,  and  it  never  reaches  the 
market  in  time.  If  there  happen  to  be  an  election  about 
that  time,  and  a  ticket  comes  around  with  a  red  star  or  a 
blue  star  on  it,  don't  you  think  the  "  star-back"  would 
commend  itself  to  the  farmer  with  a  magnetism  which 
would  require  manhood  to  resist  ?  Then  opposition  ware- 
houses and  elevators  become  tenantless ;  other  buyers 
find  their  "  occupation  gone,"  and  every  pound  of  wheat 


164  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

pays  its  toll  before  it  gets  to  mill.  This  may  seem  an  un- 
necessary addition  of  machinery,  as  the  road  could  put  the 
additional  tariff  on  the  wheat  direct,  and  so  it  would  be 
in  California,  where  the  Directors  are  the  road.  It  becomes 
important,  however,  say  in  Illinois,  when  the  Directors  of 
the  road  own  the  warehouses  and  elevators,  the  blue  stars 
and  red  stars,  and  a  larger  body  of  stockholders  own  the 
road,  and  is  one  of  the  ingenious  appliances  by  which  the 
"  inside  ring  "  gradually  possess  themselves  of  the  whole 
stock.  For  it  often  happens  that  those  who  most  loudly 
invoke  the  principle  of  the  sanctity  of  property  act  as 
though  they  believed  that  sanctity  was  a  quality  which 
belonged  to  their  property  but  not  to  that  of  other  people 
— on  the  principle,  I  suppose,  that  to  the  saintly  all  things 
are  sanctified,  and  that  sinners  who  do  not  belong  to  the 
ring  are  altogether  ungodly — whose  inheritance  should  be 
taken  away  and  given  to  the  saints. 

Then  suppose  an  instance,  which,  of  course,  is  purely 
fictitious.  Suppose  a  salt  plain  should  be  discovered  in 
Nevada,  from  which  salt  could  be  laid  down  at  the  Corn- 
stock  Mills  cheaper  than  from  the  coast.  But,  salt  is  very 
cheap  at  the  seaside ;  a  "  special  rate  "  would  place  it  in 
Virginia  City  at  a  price  that  would  "  defy  competition." 
The  owner  of  the  salt  plain  could  be  given  his  choice  be- 
tween "  published  rates  "  and  pack-mules.  Do  you  think 
after  he  had  succumbed  the  price  of  salt  would  be  any 
lower,  because  another  "  middle-man  "  had  been  squeezed 
out  ?  What  could  be  done  with  one  salt  manufactory  or 
deposit  could  be  done  with  others,  and  we  have  added 
salt  to  the  coal  and  wheat  which  have  passed  under  the 
control  of  a  monopoly  of  transportation  that  is  not  amen- 
able to  law. 

A  man  owns  a  mine  near  the  road  ;  if  he  can  transport 
his  ore  or  base  metal  to  the  smelting  works  at  reasonable 
rates,  his  mine  is  valuable.  He  does  not  succeed  in  get- 
ting rates  which  he  can  afford  to  pay.     He  holds  on  with 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  1 65 

the  sickness  of  deferred  hope  at  his  heart.  His  creditors 
become  clamorous — perhaps  his  children  are  clamorous  for 
bread.  If  at  the  next  election  the  railroad  has  a  ticket, 
do  you  think  the  owner  of  the  mine  could  refuse  to  vote 
it  ?  And,  if  he  did,  who  would  own  the  mine  after  the 
sheriff's  sale  ?  Oh,  but  our  railroads  don't  put  up  tickets, 
and  don't  want  mines  for  themselves  or  their  friends. 
Perhaps  not.  Their  successors  may.  It  is  not  mercy — it 
is  justice  we  want.  But,  why  multiply  instances  ?  Go 
through  the  whole  catalogue  of  the  necessaries,  the  luxu- 
ries, the  superfluities  of  life,  there  is  not  an  article  which 
would  be  exempt  from  this  power  to  control.  The  long 
list  would  include  everything  which  is  worth  controlling. 
In  one  of  the  parliaments  of  Elizabeth  a  member  had  fin- 
ished reading  a  list  of  the  articles  upon  which  monopolies 
had  been  granted,  when  another  started  up  and  asked, 
"Is  not  bread  there?"  In  the  new  list  to  be  prepared 
for  us  bread  would  be  there — everything  would  be  there 
necessary  to  the  comfort  or  sustenance  of  life,  except  the 
air  of  heaven. 

But  the  magnitude  of  this  result  still  suggests  its  im- 
practicability !  Why,  four  fifths  of  the  preparatory  work 
has  been  silently  done,  apparently  without  design  !  Take 
the  seventy  thousand  miles  of  railroad  in  the  United  States 
— the  great  mass  of  this  property  is  owned,  or  controlled 
as  absolutely  as  though  it  were  owned,  by  certainly  less 
than  ten  companies,  and  the  directory  of  these  companies 
may  not  include  a  hundred  men.  If  the  present  rate  of 
absorption  continue,  how  long  before  it  will  reach  one 
head  ?  It  could  be  accomplished  now  in  one  day.  Sup- 
pose the  transportation  companies — the  white  stars,  red 
stars,  and  blue  stars,  who  have  contracts  to  run  their  cars 
over  various  roads — should  conclude  to  combine,  and, 
making  their  capital  stock  one,  or  two,  or  three  thousand 
million  dollars — determine  to  "  place  it  where  it  would  do 
the  most  good,"  and  further  determine  that  it  could  not 


1 66  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

possibly  do  so  much  good  anywhere  else  as  in  the  hands 
of  the  men  who  are  railroad  directors.  Then  these  men, 
as  railroad  directors,  lease  to  themselves  as  transportation 
directors  the  various  roads  under  their  control — and  the 
thing  is  done.  But  such  a  contract,  you  urge,  would  be 
bad  in  morals  and  void  in  law.  I  don't  know  wherein  it 
differs  in  principle  from  a  contract  made  by  the  directors 
of  a  railroad  company  with  themselves  to  construct  a  road. 
But,  you  suggest,  the  stockholders  would  not  stand  it.  I 
do  not  know  why  they  would  not,  if  their  dividends  are 
secured  by  the  leases.  But  the  people,  you  say,  would 
not  stand  it.  There  would  be  an  uprising,  a  revolution  ! 
Now  you  are  the  Communist,  the  agitator.  We  do  not 
propose  to  invoke  the  bloody  power  of  revolution,  but  the 
majesty  of  a  pronounced  public  opinion  under  the  benig- 
nant forms  of  law.  Grant  that  this  danger  of  unification 
is,  as  perhaps  many  of  you  think  it,  the  chimera  of  an 
over-heated  brain — that  the  tendency  toward  concentra- 
tion has  reached  its  limit.  What,  after  all,  is  the  practical 
difference  ?  What  Vanderbilt  might  do  if  sole  owner,  is 
doing  in  various  sections  by  various  corporations  acting 
for  a  common  purpose  with  a  common  interest  and  com- 
mon instinct.  It  is  only  the  difference  between  the  king 
and  the  satraps. 

Let  me  state  the  danger  as  exactly  as  I  can.  There  is 
a  natural  tendency  in  every  civilized  society  towards  the 
concentration  of  capital.  That  tendency  has  been  greatly 
intensified  in  this  country  by  the  convulsions  of  our  civil 
war.  The  property  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  the  men 
of  moderate  means,  is  still  a  hundred-fold  greater  than  the 
great  fortunes,  but  it  is  employed  for  ten  thousand  dif- 
ferent purposes.  Concentrated  capital  recognizes  by  the 
instinct  of  money  sense  that  the  control  of  the  railroads  of 
the  country  will  give  it  the  control  of  all  the  property 
of  the  country ;  that  to  accomplish  this,  political  power, 
political  supremacy  is  necessary,  and  this  it  is  enabled  to 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 67 

seek  with  such  an  immense  pressure  upon  the  rights  and 
material  interests  of  every  man  and  every  community, 
that  there  is  imminent  danger  that  we  will  become  en- 
slaved in  spirit,  lose  that  sense  of  manly  independence 
which  is  the  essence  of  freedom,  while  we  are  enjoying 
the  forms  of  liberty,  and  barter  the  bright  hopes  of  the 
Republic  for  a  fictitious  material  growth.  The  power  that 
threatens  this  danger  has  not  yet  reached  unity,  but  the 
work  is  certainly  being  done  by  different  companies 
acting  in  the  same  interest  as  though  it  had  ;  while  the 
tendency  towards  concentration  under  one  head  to  one 
iron  hand  is  so  manifest  that  not  to  see  it  is  to  be  wilfully 
blind. 

That  this  statement  is  not  exaggerated  or  emotional,  I 
appeal  to  the  experience  of  every  business  man  in  this 
community  who  takes  part  or  feels  an  interest  in  public 
affairs.  Get  together  a  committee  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
sidering a  question  of  public  importance,  the  moment  it 
trenches  upon  railroad  ground,  how  many  will  feel  that  it  is 
dangerous  ground  full  of  pit-falls  for  their  personal  safety? 
Attempt  an  organization  to  resist  a  railroad  demand,  no 
matter  how  bold  and  unscrupulous,  how  many  will  tell 
you,  "  I  should  like  to  join  you,  but  it  will  injure  me  in 
my  business ;  the  railroad  can  take  away  special  rates  or 
give  them  to  my  neighbor  ;  they  can  issue  orders  all  along 
the  line  that  none  of  their  employees  shall  deal  with  me ; 
they  can  ruin  merchants  who  will  not  regard  their  orders. 
It  may  be  a  question  of  ruin,  of  bankruptcy,  of  bread  to 
my  family."  The  struggle  of  his  manhood  is  earnest  and 
painful,  but  the  yoke  is  upon  his  neck,  the  iron  in  his  soul. 
Others  will  join  you,  act  with  you  in  all  sincerity,  perhaps. 
There  comes  a  time  when  the  tempting  offer  is  held  out, 
a  new  road  or  bridge  is  to  be  located  where  it  will  inure 
to  a  great  public  use  and  private  advantage,  improvements 
are  to  be  made  that  will  advance  particular  property,  then 
— there  are  vacant  places  on  the  committee,  sudden  conver- 


1 68  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

sions,  and  ingenious  compromises  where  one  party  takes 
the  oyster  and  the  other  the  shell. 

A  ballot-box  is  stuffed  or  returns  altered  to  carry  one 
subsidy  ;  another  demand  follows.  Men  will  say  :  "  I  know 
it  is  wrong — it  is  an  outrage  ;  but  my  property  is  all  in 
the  city.  They  could  not  affect  its  ultimate  value,  but  it 
is  mortgaged  ;  they  can  unsettle  prices  by  their  threats, 
and  I  should  have  the  sheriff  at  my  door.  I  yield.  I 
am  not  of  the  stuff  of  which  martyrs  are  made.  If  a 
robber  had  his  pistol  at  my  head,  I  should  give  him  my 
purse." 

What  interest  is  there  here  which  cannot  be  made  to 
feel  this  iron  pressure  ?  But,  as  if  it  were  too  tedious  to 
capture  these  several  interests  in  detail,  they  go  to  Con- 
gress and  demand  the  possession  of  Goat  Island — still  de- 
mand it — boast  that  they  will  get  it — and  will  get  it  if  they 
carry  this  election.  Reserved  for  military  purposes,  they 
scarcely  intend  to  change  its  purpose ;  they  only  intend 
to  bombard  the  city,  instead  of  its  enemies,  when  it  refuses 
their  demands ! 

God  in  heaven  !  You  are  two  hundred  thousand — they 
are  three !  Have  they  got  a  hook  in  the  jaws  of  this 
leviathan,  to  draw  it  as  they  please  ? 

I  have  known  good  men  who  gave  up  the  fight,  for  re- 
sistance seemed  hopeless.  I  have  known  others  (often 
the  hard-handed  sons  of  toil,  sometimes  in  the  employ- 
ment of  the  railroad),  who,  in  a  spirit  of  manly  independ- 
ence, preferred  to  eat  black  bread  which  was  their  own 
rather  than  pound-cake  from  another's  table  ;  and  yet 
others  who,  from  professional  and  clerical  abilities  of  a 
high  order,  could  have  maintained  a  social  position  of  their 
own,  who,  for  the  daily  dole  of  a  fixed  salary,  and  for  the 
gracious  privilege  of  using  the  imperial  "  our  "  when  they 
looked  at  a  locomotive,  were  willing  to  run  errands,  repeat 
stale  slanders,  and  mouth  the  hatreds  of  their  employers 
with  a  gratuitous,  cringing,  and  obsequious  meanness  that 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 69 

must  disgust  the  manhood  of  their  masters,  if  they  have 
any  manhood  left. 

These  influences,  though  more  apparent  in  cities  and 
commercial  and  manufacturing  communities,  are  by 
no  means  confined  to  them.  Even  in  the  country,  farmers 
will  tell  you  that  their  rates  may  be  changed,  their  depots 
moved,  their  accommodations  restricted,  or  that  they  owe 
upon  railroad  sections  with  unperfected  titles ;  and  they, 
too,  are  in  the  toils.  To  one  community  hopes  are  held 
out ;  threats  are  made  to  another.  Go  through  the  State. 
Upon  every  pulse  of  industry  there  is  an  iron  finger  count- 
ing its  beats  ;  upon  every  throat  there  is  an  iron  hand 
that  tightens  or  relaxes  its  grasp  at  the  interest  or  caprice 
of  an  iron  will. 

Add  to  this  direct  power  that  which  it  naturally  draws 
to  it.  It  is  a  power  in  hand  which  can  be  used  for  any 
purpose.  Is  there  a  project  to  monopolize  the  waters  of 
a  great  valley,  so  as  to  own  the  lands  as  effectually  as  by 
title,  the  railroad  has  a  new  aid  and  ally,  with  promise 
of  reciprocal  advantage.  It  "  makes  itself  friends  of  the 
Mammon  of  Unrighteousness,"  and  all  schemes  gather 
around  it  as  a  convenient  centre.  It  will  defeat  them  if 
they  do  not  aid  it,  and  the  bargain  is  made.  It  has  its 
own  lobby  and  newspapers.  It  enjoys  a  veto  power  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  executive,  exercising  its  prerogative 
upon  bills  before  they  pass.  Perhaps  we  ought  to  thank 
it  for  its  moderation !  Now  we  begin  to  understand  not 
only  the  motives  for  seeking  political  power,  but  the  means 
and  appliance  by  which  it  is  sought.  Now  we  can  com- 
prehend how  a  central  office  in  San  Francisco,  with  wires 
laid  to  every  county,  sends  its  political  rescripts  to  every 
convention  of  every  party.  We  are  to  be  allowed  to  vote, 
but  not  always  to  count  the  votes,  if  a  superserviceable 
Board  of  Supervisors  will  appoint  Election  Boards  to  or- 
der. Sometimes  we  are  allowed  to  vote  for  good  men — 
men  whom  we  could  ourselves  choose — but  who  will  be,  if 


170  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

elected,  in  a  minority  so  hopeless  and  be  so  enmeshed  in 
the  web  of  circumstances  that  they  cannot  stir  hand  or  foot. 
We  are  to  be  allowed  to  go  through  all  the  forms ;  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  Proclamation  of  Eman- 
cipation will  still  be  read  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  the 
"  flag  of  the  free  heart's  hope  and  home  "  be  carried  in  pro- 
cession ;  the  eagle  will  "  moult  no  feather,"  on  the  coin  of 
the  realm,  and  the  "  Battle-cry  of  Freedom  "  will  be  musi- 
cal as  ever. 

So  fair,  so  calm,  so  softly  sealed, 

The  first,  last  look  by  death  revealed  ! 

Such  is  the  aspect  of  this  shore  ; 

'T  is  Greece— but  living  Greece  no  more  ! 

I  have  referred  but  incidentally  to  that  twin  birth  of  in- 
cestuous shame,  the  Credit  Mobilier  and  the  Contract  and 
Finance  Company.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four  millions  of  acres  of  public  lands — 
three  times  the  area  of  Great  Britain — given  to  railroad 
companies,  and  at  the  last  session  of  Congress  bills  were 
introduced  giving  one  hundred  and  eighty-nine  millions 
more — nor  to  the  millions — hundreds  of  millions  of 
which  the  Southern  States  have  been  robbed,  and  under 
the  false  pretence  that  the  railroads  were  to  be  built  by 
the  paper  companies.  I  have  made  no  reference  to  the 
$30,000,000  this  State  and  its  counties  have  been  asked 
for  railroad  companies  through  legislative  action  and 
popular  votes,  nor  to  the  fact  that  while  the  General 
Government  is  paying  $2,000,000  per  annum  on  the  bonds 
of  the  Central  Pacific,  and  the  State,  $105,000,  the  com- 
pany can  successfully  defy  the  State  to  collect  its  taxes, 
and  with  an  effrontery  that  is  sublime,  makes  the  gifts 
and  largess  it  has  received  one  of  the  grounds  of  its  re- 
fusal to  pay  ;  nor  the  fact  that  to-day  there  is  not  a  piece 
or  species  of  public  property,  from  China  Basin  and  Goat 
Island  to  all  the  broad  acres  of  our  national  domain,  from 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  I/I 

the  remotest  spring  in  the  mountains  to  the  rolling  waters 
of  the  rivers  of  the  plains,  upon  which  some  incipient  or 
full-grown  monopoly  has  not  fixed  its  covetous  eye,  and 
does  not  hope  to  obtain  through  some  kind  of  political 
corruption  or  bargain  and  sale. 

And  if  I  mention  them  now  it  is  to  say  that  I  regard 
them  only  as  symptoms  of  a  disease,  the  surface  sores  of 
a  corruption  that  is  inward,  which  threatens  to  destroy 
all  freedom  by  destroying  that  manly  independence 
which  is  its  only  sure  foundation,  and  making  dominant 
the  principle  that  government  is  a  thing  for  personal 
aggrandizement,  to  get  rich  out  of  it,  and  not  ordained  to 
give  equal  protection  to  all. 

For  the  expression  upon  other  occasions  of  sentiments 
like  these,  I  have  been  freely  called  an  agitator,  a  dema- 
gogue, an  alarmist,  and  a  Communist.  As  communism 
seems  to  be  the  "  raw  head  and  bloody  bones  "  of  this 
generation,  and  is  made  the  symptoms  of  everything  that 
is  bad,  I  desire  to  say  just  how  much  of  it  I  have. 

I  believe  that  the  man  who  owns  one  dollar  holds  it  by 
a  right  as  sacred  as  the  man  who  holds  a  million  ;  and  that 
the  man  who  does  own  a  million  does  not  acquire  by  that 
ownership  any  greater  right  to  take  the  dollar,  than  the 
owner  of  the  dollar  has  to  take  the  million.  I  do  not 
subscribe  to  that  doctrine  of  political  ethics,  "  To  him 
that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from  him  that  hath  not  it 
shall  be  taken  away,  even  that  which  he  hath."  I  do  not 
concur  in  the  new  Scriptural  reading,  "  Sell  all  thou  hast 
and  give  it  to  a  railroad  company."  The  man  who  has 
earned  his  dollar  by  the  honest  sweat  of  his  brow,  or  his 
brain  ;  the  man  who  has  received  by  inheritance,  or  who 
has  accumulated  by  industry,  energy,  thrift,  frugality,  fore- 
sight, or  good  luck,  I  would  protect  in  his  fortune,  small  or 
great,  by  every  sanction  or  muniment  of  law.  Housed 
in  his  possessions — cabin  or  castle — he  should  be  protected 
from  the  touch  of  the  Government  and  the  fury  of  the  mob. 


172  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

But  if  he  had  despoiled  the  nation's  inheritance,  in  his 
greed  of  gain  and  power ;  if  he  had  bought  legislators, 
judges,  and  executives  ;  if  he  had  organized  corruption 
into  a  system,  made  bribery  a  trade  until  he  had  de- 
bauched the  moral  sense  of  the  people  by  the  grandeur 
of  his  robbery,  and  all  titles  became  insecure  in  his  grasp- 
ing presence — I  should  say — I  think  I  should  say — that  he 
had  enough,  and  that  the  fact  that  he  had  taken  so  much 
did  not  give  him  in  reason,  and  should  not  in  law,  a 
vested,  absolute,  and  indefeasible  right  to  take  all  there  is 
left.  And,  whether  it  be  a  man  or  a  corporation,  or  a 
system  of  corporations  bound  together  by  the  common 
hopes  of  public  plunder,  I  do  not  think  I  should  modify 
the  sentiment.  To  this  degree  has  my  communism  come  ; 
is  yours  a  shade  less  or  more  ? 

There  are  those  who  believe  that  a  certain  amount 
of  political  corruption  is  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
any  government.  I  confess  I  respect  those  who  vow  the 
sentiment  more  than  I  do  those  who  act  upon  it  without 
avowing  it.  There  are  those  who  believe  that  the  system 
now  in  vogue  is  the  only  one  under  which  railroads  can 
be  built.  I  do  not  think  so.  I  do  not  believe  that  40,- 
000,000  of  American  people,  with  $30,000,000,000  of  prop- 
erty, must  barter  their  birthright  to  secure  transportation. 
I  do  not  think  railroads  need  be  political  machines  any 
more  than  gristmills,  tinshops,  and  farms.  In  thirty  years 
the  population  of  the  United  States  will  approximate 
100,000,000  souls,  its  property  values  $100,000,000,000. 
Do  you  think  the  wheat  is  going  to  rot  in  the  field,  the 
fruit  on  the  trees,  the  vessel  at  the  dock,  and  that  all 
commercial  and  industrial  life  is  to  stagnate  if  the  admin- 
istration of  the  Government  is  not  given  up  to  railroad 
companies  and  their  allies?  I  do  not  believe  the  future 
of  California,  with  all  its  illimitable  possibilities,  should  be 
mortgaged  now  to  any  set  of  persons  with  power  to  ap- 
point guardians  and  receivers  for  all  generations  to  come. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 73 

To  this  complexion  it  will  come,  unless  we  burst  the 
bands  wherewith  we  are  bound,  before  our  locks  are 
shorn. 

For  the  whole  of  this  great  question  no  adequate  solu- 
tion has  yet  been  proposed.  The  evil  has  struck  its  roots 
deeply  and  their  ramifications  are  wide ;  to  eradicate  it 
is  a  work  of  courage  and  wisdom,  of  patience  and  time. 
But  the  work  must  have  a  beginning ;  the  time  to  begin 
is  now. 

One  solution  proposed  is,  that  the  Government  take 
possession  of  all  the  roads.  That  this  would  involve  a 
concentration  of  power  in  the  General  Government,  and 
must  be  preceded  by  a  civil-service  reform  of  a  nature  of 
which  as  yet  we  have  had  no  experience,  none  will  deny. 
It  has  lately  been  urged  in  newspapers  of  wide  circulation 
in  this  State  that  we  must  vote  for  legislative  candidates 
who  would  go  into  caucus  in  order  to  get  appropriations 
for  our  State.  The  logical  conclusion  of  this  argument — 
if  it  have  any — is  that  we  must  vote  a  particular  ticket, 
designated  in  a  particular  way  and  in  a  well-known  office, 
or  our  forts  may  be  dismantled  and  our  mails  be  stopped. 
Charles  the  First,  in  his  boldest  moments,  would  not  have 
dared  to  use  such  words  to  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain, 
and  if  Louis  XIV.,  when  he  said  "  I  am  the  State,"  had 
acted  upon  such  a  policy,  he  would  have  lost  his  head.  I 
do  not  believe  any  administration  ever  elected  by  the 
American  people  ever  deserved  such  a  reproach — if  so  we 
are  already  slaves.  But  the  very  use  of  such  an  argument 
by  an  intelligent  man,  in  a  public  newspaper,  must  "  give 
us  pause "  upon  the  question  of  conferring  additional 
power  until  we  have  additional  guarantees.  We  have  at 
least  reached  the  point,  however,  where  we  can  say : 

And  where  the  Government  has  loaned  its  credit  and 
given  its  lands  to  build  a  road  and  been  defrauded  of  its 
securities,  it  has  the  right  and  should  exercise  the  power 
to  take  possession  of  the  road. 


174  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

If  no  man  has  yet  been  able  to  devise  a  solution  for  the 
whole  question,  every  man  knows  the  first  step  which 
must  be  taken  before  any  solution  can  be  reached.  The 
political  power  and  dictation  of  these  corporations, 
whether  they  comprise  three  men  or  three  thousand,  must 
be  broken.  That  tyranny  which  is  so  potent  when  exer- 
cised upon  individuals  and  interests  in  detail  must  be 
destroyed  by  a  general  uprising  of  all  individuals  and 
interests,  heralded  by  a  new  declaration  of  independence. 

The  American  people  are  a  just  people,  a  law-abiding 
people,  a  debt-paying  people ;  and  it  is  not  necessary  for 
any  corporation  to  own  the  Government  in  order  to  pro- 
tect its  rights — that  only  becomes  necessary  in  order  to 
perpetuate  wrongs.  The  time  has  come  when  the  people 
should  assert  their  right  through  forms  of  law  to  exercise 
that  control  over  railroads  which  will  secure  uniformity, 
fairness,  and  accountability.  The  issue  is  fairly  made  up 
between  the  people  upon  the  one  side,  and  railroads  and 
allied  corporations  upon  the  other.     Which  shall  govern  ? 

I  have  done.  Standing  in  this  presence — loving  order 
as  I  love  life,  sworn  to  maintain  it  and  ready  to  redeem 
the  oath  with  my  life — conscious  of  my  responsibilities, 
and  weighing  my  words — looking  the  future  earnestly  in 
the  face,  I  solemnly  believe  that  the  choice  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  is  between  reform  now  and  revolution  here- 
after !  And  I  adjure  these  corporations  for  their  own 
sakes  as  well  as  ours  not  to  involve  us  all  in  the  common 
ruin  which  their  madness  threatens.  Justice  is  the  only 
sure  foundation  upon  which  our  feet  can  stand. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1/5 

AN  OPEN  LETTER  TO  JOHN  B.  FELTON.1 

[Note  : — John  B.  Felton  was  conceded  to  be  a  learned  lawyer,  a  man  also 
highly  educated  and  accomplished  outside  of  his  profession,  an  orator  of 
great  prominence.  It  has  already  been  said  herein  :  "  The  allurements  of 
proffered  wealth  and  power  to  the  brightest  legal  minds  of  highest  culture  " 
were  great ;  and  that  such  as  he,  even,  were  swept  into  the  maelstrom  of 
corporation  service.  So  clearly  and  so  fully  does  this  "  Open  Letter"  give 
the  gist  of  Mr.  Felton's  speech,  that  it  is  not  thought  proper  or  necessary  to 
reprint  it.] 

Dear  Sir :  I  find  in  the  A  It  a  California  of  22d  inst.  a 
report  from  your  own  notes  of  a  speech  delivered  by  you 
in  Piatt's  Hall  on  the  previous  evening,  and  I  learn  from 
the  head-lines  that  it  was  intended  as  a  critical  analysis 
of  "  Governor  Booth's  dose  of  political  strychnine."  A 
severe  cold  prevents  me  from  answering  your  address  on 
the  rostrum  where  it  was  delivered,  and  I  trust  you  will 
excuse  this  method  of  reply.  I  cannot  stoop  to  notice 
the  hired  assassins  of  character,  who  find  in  your  speech 
an  armory  of  poisoned  stilettos ;  I  cannot  afford  not  to 
notice  you.  Perhaps  I  should  feel  flattered  that  a  man  of 
your  distinguished  ability,  profound  scholarship,  and  great 
reputation  should  devote  so  much  time  to  the  considera- 
tion of  any  effort  of  mine — and  I  do.  The  feeling  would 
have  been  somewhat  different,  I  admit — something  of 
gratitude  would  have  been  mingled  with  it — if  your  state- 
ment of  my  positions  had  been  generous,  candid,  fair,  or 
truthful.  1  have  vanity  enough  to  believe  that  I  speak 
English  with  tolerable  accuracy,  and  no  one  doubts  your 
ability  to  understand  it.  You  are  credited,  also,  with  that 
fine  faculty  of  argument  which  enables  you  to  state  your 
opponent's  propositions  with  more  force  and  clearness 
than  he  does  himself — when  you  desire  to.  I  make  due 
allowance  for  the  mental  obliquity  which  some  natures 
necessarily  acquire  from  the  habit  of  looking  at  only  one 
side  of  questions  with  interested  eyes,  and  the  determina- 

1  Published  August  27,  1873. 


1/6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

tion  of  making  that  appear  the  right  side  at  every  hazard, 
from  interested  motives.  I  have  known  some  persons  who 
successfully  counteracted  this  tendency  in  themselves  by 
devoting  a  portion  of  their  leisure  to  the  careful  study  of 
the  abstract  and  physical  sciences,  where  truth,  not  vic- 
tory, is  the  object  sought.  The  study  of  Monte  Cristo; 
though  doubtless  a  delightful  relaxation  from  severe  men- 
tal toil,  I  do  not  think  would  have  this  corrective  effect, 
even  if  supplemented  by  the  teachings  of  "  Rabelais  laugh- 
ing in  his  easy  chair,"  and  the  mocking  satire  of  the  illus- 
trious Dean  Swift.  Making,  however,  due  allowance  for 
any  natural  or  acquired  habit  of  thought,  I  am  still  com- 
pelled to  the  opinion  that  your  own  misrepresentation 
upon  this  occasion  was  conscious,  designed,  deliberate, 
and  studied.  I  will  tell  you  why  :  Soon  after  my  nomi- 
nation for  Governor  on  the  2ist  of  July,  1871,  I  delivered 
the  opening  address  of  that  canvass  in  Piatt's  Hall.  It 
was  published  in  most  of  the  daily  papers  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  by  the  leading  Republican  papers  throughout 
the  State.  It  was  circulated  as  a  campaign  document  by 
the  Republican  State  Central  Committee  in  every  county 
of  the  State.  Fully  one  third  of  the  speech  was  devoted 
to  a  consideration  of  railroad  and  other  incorporated 
monopolies,  the  danger  to  Republican  institutions  of  great 
social  inequalities  growing  out  of  vast  concentration  of 
capital,  and  to  the  imminent  danger  that  associated  capi- 
tal might  control  in  its  own  interest  the  whole  machinery 
of  our  Government.  The  positions  then  were  the  very 
same  as  those  maintained  in  the  address  to  which  yours 
purports  to  be  an  answer.  In  proof  of  this  I  republish 
at  the  close  of  this  letter  that  portion  of  the  speech  of 
1 87 1,  which  refers  to  this  subject,  and  shall  be  glad  to 
know  wherein  my  position  then  differs  from  what  it  is  now. 
In  every  one  of  the  thirty  odd  times  I  addressed  the  peo- 
ple of  this  State  in  the  canvass  of  that  year,  I  went  over 
the  same  ground.     Whatever  other  topic  may  have  es- 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  \JJ 

caped  attention,  that  was  always  fully  discussed.  When 
I  addressed  the  people  of  Oakland  you  were  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  my  auditors.  From  your  acciden- 
tal position  in  the  audience  you  were  the  most  prominent 
to  me.  I  was  flattered  by  your  marked  attention  while 
delivering  the  speech,  delighted  with  your  warm  encomi- 
ums when  through.  The  doctrines  wherein  you  now  find 
"  enough  political  strychnine  to  throw  all  society  into  con- 
vulsions "  then  seemed  a  very  harmless  anodyne.  I 
cannot  believe  that  even  your  public  devotion  and  distin- 
guished fealty  to  your  party — since  the  close  of  the  war — 
would  induce  you  to  support  a  man  for  Governor  who, 
had  he  the  power,  would  "  Uproar  the  universal  peace, 
confound  all  unity  on  earth." 

Upon  these  questions  I  maintain  the  same  sentiments 
now  as  I  did  then.  I  was  nominated  for  Governor  be- 
cause my  sentiments  were  known.  I  was  simple  enough 
to  believe  that  the  platform  on  which  I  was  nominated 
meant  what  it  said.  If  I  had  not  made  an  open  profes- 
sion of  my  faith  I  should  not  have  received  a  majority  in 
any  county  of  the  State.  May  not  the  difficulty  with 
those  who  would  quarrel  with  me  be,  not  that  I  have 
changed,  but  that  I  have  not.  My  sentiments  when  I  was 
elected  were  in  accord  with  nine  tenths  of  the  Republican 
party.  They  are  still.  In  the  counties  where  the  one 
tenth  control  the  organization  to  stifle  the  full  expression 
of  opinion  I  appeal  to  the  people  and  await  the  result 
without  a  thought  or  a  care  as  to  how  it  may  affect  my 
personal  interest.  You  fall  into  a  very  harmless  error 
when  you  mistake  your  own  "  convulsions  "  for  those  of 
society. 

A  stranger  reading  your  speech,  who  had  not  read  mine, 
would  suppose  that  I  desired  to  inaugurate  a  war  upon  the 
rights  of  property  ;  when  my  greatest  desire  is  to  make 
each  man  secure  in  the  possession  of  his  own.  I  maintain, 
if  you  own  a  farm  and  desire  to  give  a  portion  of  its  annual 


178  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

income  to  a  railroad  or  other  incorporation,  no  one  should 
prevent  you.  If  you  do  not  desire  to — no  one — not  even 
a  majority  of  voters,  should  compel  you.  You  maintain 
that  a  majority  of  your  fellow-citizens  can  tax  you  for 
such  a  contribution,  even  though  you  believe  you  will  be 
injured,  not  benefited.  I  desire  to  secure  every  man  in 
the  fruits  of  his  labor,  skill,  sagacity,  and  prudence  from 
all  robbery,  whether  under  forms  of  law  or  not,  and  you 
accuse  me  of  paralyzing  industry.  I  say  that  railroads 
should  not  be  political  machines,  and  you  accuse  me  of 
inciting  a  spirit  which  would  tear  up  their  tracks.  Is  that 
a  concession  that  your  clients  are  so  committed  to  their 
present  policy  that  they  must  continue  it  or  abandon  their 
road  ?  I  would  cut  out  a  cancer  ;  you  accuse  me  of  medi- 
tating murder.  I  would  stop  that  political  corruption  by 
which  every  man's  possessions  are  endangered  ;  you  accuse 
me  of  attacking  the  rights  of  possession.  One  might  al- 
most suppose  from  your  insinuations  that  I  was  prepared 
to  throw  a  drag-net  over  a  city,  large  enough  to  encompass 
in  its  meshes  alike  the  widow's  homestead,  the  cottage  of 
the  poor,  and  the  mansion  of  the  rich — or  was  an  evil 
genius,  whose  very  presence  casts  a  shadow  upon  the 
honestly  acquired  title  of  my  neighbor's  property. 

I  protest  against  a  favored  few  making  Government  a 
machine  through  which  to  acquire  property  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  many  ;  you  represent  me  as  attacking  the 
right  of  property. 

You  say  the  accumulations  of  the  rich  are  the  reservoirs 
from  which  the  poor  are  supplied.  God  help  the  poor  if 
some  rich  men  in  my  mind's  eye  measure  the  supply. 
God  help  them  if  any  man  can  obtain  the  power  to 
measure  it.  The  truth  is,  the  capitalist,  large  or  small, 
employs  laborers  for  the  sake  of  the  profits  upon  labor, 
and  the  laborer  accepts  employment  for  the  wages  paid. 
"  The  reservoirs  of  wealth  "  are  fed  by  labor — that  is  the 
original,  constant,  and  only  source  of  supply.      Cut  that 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 79 

off  and  there  would  be  neither  poverty  nor  riches,  but  all 
would  meet  on  the  common  level  of  common  ruin. 

I  give  voice  to  a  common  sentiment  that  the  city  is 
menaced  by  the  greed  and  political  machinations  of  a 
corporation,  and  ask  that  it  be  put  under  bonds,  and  find 
myself  arraigned  as  a  disturber  of  the  public  peace.  Stating 
that  vast  concentrations  of  capital  are  dangerous  to  re- 
publican institutions,  I  am  accused  of  desiring  to  check 
the  general  accumulation  and  fair  distribution  which 
result  from  industry,  energy,  foresight,  and  thrift. 

A  fair  distribution  is  as  great  an  object  of  political 
economy  as  a  rapid  creation  of  wealth.  Suppose  the  two 
million  acres  of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  should  come  into 
the  possession  of  a  great  irrigation  company,  with  a  paid- 
up  stock  of  a  hundred  million  dollars,  who  would  employ 
50,000  Chinamen.  The  amount  of  wealth,  the  amount  of 
production,  would  be  as  great  as  though  the  valley  were 
settled  and  owned  by  25,000  American  families.  The  net 
profits  would  be  greater,  as  the  consumption  would  be  less. 
Will  any  one  seriously  contend  that  the  first  condition  of 
society  is  as  desirable  as  the  second,  or  that  a  man  who 
resisted  the  enactment  of  laws  to  create  the  first  condition 
was  a  Communist  or  Socialist,  and  engaged  in  a  war  against 
property  ?  Yet  this  is  the  meaning  of  your  argument,  if 
it  have  any. 

You  are  pleased  to  draw  an  illustration  from  mining 
enterprise,  and  instance  a  case  where  success  has  been 
honestly  earned,  and  honorably  used.  I  beg  to  call  your 
attention  to  an  illustration  of  our  respective  positions, 
drawn  also  from  mining.  The  Green  Briar  Mine  is  an  in- 
corporated mining  company,  with  a  capital  of  a  million 
dollars,  whose  shares  are  owned  by  a  thousand  stock- 
holders. The  work  has  reached  a  point  where  it  is  self- 
supporting.  The  superintendent  discovers  a  large  and 
rich  body  of  ore,  and  concealing  the  fact  from  others, 
communicates  it  to  the  directors,  who  immediately  levy 


180  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

an  assessment,  depreciate  the  stock,  and  buy  it  in.  After 
a  series  of  rich  dividends  the  ledge  pinches,  a  double  divi- 
dend is  paid  from  earnings  reserved  for  this  purpose,  the 
stock  goes  up  and  the  public  take  it.  If  I  depreciate  this 
peculiar  kind  of  "  industry  "  in  aid  of  the  concentration 
of  capital,  and  ask  laws  for  its  punishment,  am  I  to  be 
arraigned  as  the  enemy  of  that  industry  which  produces 
and  accumulates  and  dispenses  ?  Do  you  really  recognize 
no  distinction  between  the  industrious  man  and  the  cheva- 
lier d 'Industrie?  " 

Or  again,  a  company  of  gentlemen  incorporate  them- 
selves as  the  "  Turbine  Company."  They  manage,  at 
election  time,  to  control  a  majority  of  the  stock  in  the 
several  companies  of  the  Mocstock  ledge,  and  put  in  their 
own  Boards  of  Directors.  Then  all  of  the  ore  from  the 
various  claims  is  sent  to  the  mills  of  the  Turbine  Com- 
pany, the  members  of  which  grow  rich  at  the  expense  of 
their  fellow-stockholders  in  the  mining  companies.  Ob- 
jecting to  this  method  of  accumulations,  and  arguing  if  it 
does  not  come  within  the  prohibition  of  law  it  ought  to, 
am  I  to  be  stigmatized  as  worse  than  the  men  who 
saturate  houses  with  camphene  and  give  them  to  the 
flames  ? 

A  railroad  company  is  endowed  as  no  other  corporation 
has  ever  been  before.  Its  Directors  make  contracts  with 
themselves  for  the  building  of  the  road,  for  the  purpose 
of  exhausting  the  endowment  and  swelling  their  private 
fortunes.  A  few  of  the  individual  stockholders,  who  are 
not  Directors,  believing  that  their  rights  have  not  been 
respected,  resolve  to  bring  suit.  They  find  no  lawyer  in 
the  State  whose  reputation  and  ability  commend  him,  in 
greater  degree,  to  them,  than  John  B.  Felton.  He  pre- 
pares his  complaint  so  skilfully  and  marshals  his  facts  in 
such  a  solid  column  behind  it,  that  the  Directors  will  not 
even  go  into  court,  but  compromise  with  the  parties  to 
the  action  by  paying  five  dollars  and  seventeen  cents  for 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  l8l 

every  dollar  invested,  and  add  a  magnificent  fee  for  the 
lawyer.  If  I  say  that  the  nation  who  gave  its  lands  and 
lent  its  credit  to  build  the  road  is  a  sufferer  by  the  fraud 
to  the  extent  of  its  impaired  security,  do  I  thus  become 
an  enemy  to  railroads  ?  Your  doctrines  drive  you  to  the 
inevitable  conclusion  that  fraud  is  a  necessary  element  to 
the  success  of  associated  capital,  and  that  in  destroying 
that  we  shall  destroy  its  life.  If  that  is  the  moral  atmos- 
phere of  your  daily  life,  it  is  well  you  should  occasion- 
ally come  "  up  into  the  upper  air." 

Your  Monte  Cristo  illustration  does  not  deceive  any 
one — not  even  yourself.  It  is  not  the  policy  of  monopo- 
lies to  destroy  themselves  by  locking  up  supplies,  but 
to  tax  supplies  at  their  pleasure  on  their  way  to  the 
consumer. 

I  instance  a  corporation  that,  in  its  determination  to 
direct  and  debauch  legislation,  manipulates  the  machinery 
of  both  parties  ;  which,  controlling  all  the  great  lines  of 
intercommunication,  endeavors  to  override  and  crush  out 
every  man  and  every  interest  it  cannot  use  ;  that  makes 
bribery  a  trade,  corruption  a  system ;  defies  the  State  to 
collect  its  taxes  ;  openly  acts  upon  the  principle  that  it 
will  make  the  avenues  to  justice  so  expensive  that  no 
private  litigant  can  afford  to  seek  legal  redress  against  its 
wrongs  ;  openly  maligns  or  secretly  whispers  away  the 
good  name  of  every  public  man  who  will  not  do  its  bidding. 
I  instance  the  fact  that  224,000,000  acres  of  public  lands 
have  been  given  to  the  railroad  companies,  and  that  they 
ask  for  189,000,000  more  ;  that  the  Southern  States  have 
been  robbed  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  under  the  false 
pretence  of  building  railroads  ;  that,  all  through  the  West, 
towns  and  counties  are  groaning  under  taxes  to  pay  in- 
terest on  bonds  issued  ostensibly  for  railroads,  but  really 
for  the  benefit  of  contract  and  Finance  companies.  I 
point  to  the  fact  that  this  is  not  only  a  constantly  grow- 
ing power,  but   is   rapidly   centralizing,   becoming  more 


1 82  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

and  more  a  political  element  to  the  detriment  and  danger 
of  a  republican  government.  And  I  am  told  what  ? — that 
I  am  the  teacher  of  a  pernicious  doctrine  !  Stanton  died 
poor ;  Chase  did  not  steal,  and  Boutwell  was  a  retail 
grocer ;  that  when  the  sky  falls  we  will  catch  larks,  and 
am  treated  to  a  lot  of  puns  and  bon  mots,  which  if  care- 
fully common-placed  and  judiciously  expended,  would 
make  a  reputation  for  a  first-class  jester  at  a  dinner-table. 

You  desire  to  know  if,  when  I  speak  of  revolution,  I 
mean  it  as  a  prediction  or  a  threat. 

During  the  height  of  our  civil  war,  on  the  31st  of  May, 
1864,  you  delivered  an  oration  before  the  "  Associated 
Alumni."  I  beg  to  refresh  your  memory  with  one  or  two 
of  its  eloquent  passages  : 

"  Am  I  asked  what  will  be  the  consequence  if  California  is  treated  with 
injustice,  if  ignorance  and  folly  make  unwise  laws  to  oppress  her  ?  Well  I 
know  from  the  time  of  Homer  down  it  is  the  prophet  of  evil  who  is  blamed, 
not  the  cause.  But  will  you  find  an  instance  in  history  where  unwise  laws 
have  not  weakened  and  finally  sundered  the  ties  of  loyalty  and  love  that  bind 
the  subject  to  the  ruler.  Where  will  you  see  a  growing  nation  submitting 
long  to  the  restraints  that  fetter  her  in  her  onward  march.  Is  there  an  ex- 
ample  recorded  in  the  world's  annals  of  a  great  political  abuse  that  did  not 
at  length  shatter  the  system  in  which  it  had  its  root.  .  .  .  With  this 
dread  lesson  in  my  heart  how  can  I  hesitate  to  tell  you  that  in  any  great  politi- 
cal abuse  there  is  the  seed  of  anarchy,  revolution,  and  disunion. — John  B. 
Felton. 

The  '*  great  political  abuse  "  in  which  you  then  found 
"  the  seed  of  anarchy,  revolution,  and  disunion,"  was  in 
the  failure  of  the  General  Government  to  have  surveys  of 
the  public  lands  with  sufficient  rapidity,  and  in  its  then 
policy  of  not  giving  titles,  but  only  possessory  rights  to 
mines  !  The  time  you  improve  to  make  your  prediction 
or  threat  of  anarchy,  revolution,  and  disunion  was  when 
Sherman  was  before  Atlanta,  and  Grant  fighting  his  bloody 
way  through  the  Wilderness. 

In  conclusion,  if  I  am  to  be  read  out  of  the  party  and 
denounced  a  traitor,  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  you 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 83 

are  the  man  of  all  others  to  pronounce  the  excommunica- 
tion. Having  come  into  the  party  late  it  is  most  meet 
that  you  should  atone  for  your  early  supineness  by  your 
present  proscriptive  zeal.  During  the  war  I  thought  at 
one  time  or  another  I  was  brought  in  contact  with  every 
prominent  Republican  in  this  portion  of  the  State.  It 
never  was  my  good  fortune  to  meet  you.  Your  social  and 
professional  position  were  as  high  then  as  now.  Your  in- 
tellectual eminence  always,  your  pre-eminence  not  unfre- 
quently,  conceded,  then 

"  One  blast  upon  your  bugle  horn 
Was  worth  a  thousand  men." 

After  the  war  was  over,  after  the  glad  acclaim  of  victory 
— when  our  hearts  were  full  of  the  sweet,  silent  thankful- 
ness for  peace — I,  in  common  with  50,000  other  Republi- 
can voters,  learned  three  facts  at  the  same  time : 
First — That  you  were  a  Republican. 
Second — That  you  were  a  candidate  for  the  United 
States  Senate. 
Third — That  it  was  to  be  a  "  moneyed  fight." 
I  have  the  honor  to  be 

Your  obt.  servant, 

Newton  Booth. 

The  following  is  that  portion  of  the  speech  referred  to 
in  the  above  letter.  It  was  delivered  by  Newton  Booth, 
as  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor,  in  Piatt's  Hall, 
July  21,  1871  : 

OUR   RAILROADS— A  PROBLEM. 

In  the  rapid  growth  and  development  of  this  country 
new  questions  and  new  applications  of  old  principles  are 
constantly  arising.  That  which  seemed  a  trifle  yesterday, 
may  be  of  grave  importance  to-day  and  become  a  threat- 
ening danger  to-morrow.     The  introduction  and  vast  ex- 


1 84  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

tension  of  the  railroad  system  in  the  United  States, 
placing  our  interior  trade  and  communications  largely 
under  the  control  of  great  corporations,  present  some 
difficulties  to  practical  statesmanship.  The  world  has 
seldom  witnessed  so  great  and  rapid  a  material  change  as 
that  wrought  by  railroads.  There  may  be  those  who  can 
remember  their  invention.  Forty  years  ago  they  were  a 
curiosity  in  the  United  States.  Now  we  have  more  than 
50,000  miles  in  operation  at  a  cost  of  $2,600,000,000.  They 
are  a  part  of  the  movement  we  call  civilization.  They 
are  the  arteries  of  trade.  They  are  a  necessity  of  the 
time. 

More  than  any  other  branch  of  business,  however,  they 
represent  capital  massed.  In  our  day  there  is  a  strong  and 
increasing  tendency  toward  the  centralization  of  wealth. 
The  great  business  absorbs  the  small,  the  powerful  com- 
pany the  weak.  In  this  country  the  control  of  internal 
commerce,  through  methods  of  transportation,  is  the  prize 
for  which  concentrated  capital  and  executive  ability  are 
struggling.  It  is  a  struggle  between  giants — a  struggle  in 
which  popular  rights,  the  rights  of  individuals,  the  rights 
of  the  weak,  are  liable  to  be  disregarded.  There  is  one 
company  now  in  the  United  States  that  own  and  operate 
railroads  which  cost  more  than  the  assessed  value  of  all 
the  property  in  this  State.  If  this  principle  of  centraliza- 
tion should  continue,  and  increase  as  rapidly  in  the  next 
twenty-five  years  as  it  has  in  the  past,  it  is  not  impossible 
that  the  whole  vast  system  of  railroads  may  pass  under  the 
control  of  one  company,  or  a  combination  of  companies 
with  one  head,  with  power  and  patronage  enough  to  make 
the  Government  in  all  its  departments  subservient  to  its 
will.  Does  this  seem  chimerical  ?  It  is  neither  chimerical 
nor  remotely  improbable.  It  seems  quite  certain  that 
three  or  four  companies  will  soon  control,  if  they  do  not 
already,  nearly  all  the  great  lines  of  communication  in  the 
United  States — the  struggle  for  supremacy  to-day  being 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 85 

between  Tom  A.  Scott,  representing  the  Pennsylvania 
Central ;  Jim  Fisk  and  Jay  Gould,  representing  the  Erie; 
and  Vanderbilt,  representing  the  New  York  Central,  with 
their  various  connections  and  dependencies.  If  one  of 
these  companies  should  absorb  the  others,  or  if  they  should 
combine,  that  company  or  combination  in  ten  years  might 
control  every  mile  of  railroad  in  the  United  States. 

*The  problem  to  be  solved  is,  how  to  increase  and  pro- 
tect the  necessary  facilities  of  communication,  and  avoid 
the  danger  to  republican  institutions  from  immense  ac- 
cumulations of  capital  in  few  hands,  or  it  may  be  under 
the  direction  of  a  single  will  ;  and  the  special  danger 
which  arises  from  the  fact  that  any  power  which  controls 
our  internal  commerce,  touches  every  interest,  and  to 
that  extent  influences  the  well-being  and  destiny  of  the 
nation.  I  know  not  what  solution  will  ultimately  be 
reached,  but  the  first  step  is  to  say,  '•  Hands  off  !  "  to  de- 
termine that  Government  shall  not  be  used  in  any  of  its 
departments  for  purposes  of  speculation — that  capital  is 
able  to  take  care  of  itself — and  that  concentrated  capital 
is  becoming  so  vast  a  power,  it  is  necessary  to  detach  it 
from  all  control  of  the  Government  to  prevent  its  obtain- 
ing the  entire  control. 

Having  stated  the  question  as  I  understand  it,  in  its 
broad  significance,  it  may  seem  trivial  to  discuss  it  in  de- 
tail ;  but  the  particular  phase  of  the  question  known  here 
as  "  anti-subsidy,"  involves  the  whole  principle,  and  we 
must  consider  it  as  it  presents  itself  in  its  immediate  as 
well  as  its  remote  effects.  It  is  said,  also,  as  both  parties 
substantially  agree  in  their  platforms,  the  question  is 
settled  and  its  discussion  idle.  It  is  not  to  be  denied, 
however,  that  there  is  a  kind  of  undercurrent  to  public 
opinion,  or  belief,  I  know  not  how  general,  that  popu- 
lar feeling  upon  this  question  is  mere  sound  and  fury, 
which  must  be  humored  while  it  lasts,  but  whose  force  will 
soon    spend    itself.     I  do    not  think   so.     I  believe   the 


1 86  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

popular  instinct  is  right ;  that  it  will  abide,  and  I  desire 
to  justify  it. 

The  argument  against  State  and  county  subsidies  is : 
First — Upon  grounds  of  economy.  It  is  the  most  ex- 
pensive method  of  building  railroads  that  can  be  devised. 
A  large  percentage  of  every  subsidy  granted  is  lost  before 
it  reaches  actual  payment  for  work  done.  If  $500,000  is 
deemed  essential  to  construct  a  road  through  a  county, 
the  company  asking  the  subsidy  will  add  to  that  amount 
the  sum  necessary  to  carry  the  bill  through  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  an  additional  sum  to  carry  the  election  before 
the  people.  Thus  the  people  will  not  only  pay  for  the 
road,  but  furnish  the  money  to  corrupt  their  own  agents, 
and  forestall  the  just  expression  of  their  own  will.  Is  it 
not  better  to  establish  the  principle  that  if  the  people  of 
a  county  want  a  road  and  are  willing  to  build  it,  they 
should  own  it  ;  and  if  a  company  wants  to  own  a  road, 
they  should  build  it  ?  The  narrow-gauge  road  will  soon 
extend  facilities  for  transportation  at  greatly  reduced  ex- 
pense ;  and  since  mechanical  genius  has  grappled  with  the 
subject,  it  will  not  be  long  before  the  steam  wagon  is 
trundling  over  our  roads,  bearing  its  burdens  to  our  doors. 
Next — County  subsidies  are  unnecessary.  There  is  abun- 
dance of  capital  seeking  investment.  Where  there  is  suffi- 
cient business  a  road  will  certainly  be  built.  If  the  building 
of  a  road  this  year  will  create  a  supporting  business,  wait 
a  year  and  the  business  will  bring  the  road  without  a  pub- 
lic tax.  Forcing  it  through  may  do  some  good,  but  also 
some  evil.  Its  first  effect  is  to  enhance  the  price  of  unset- 
tled lands  and  place  them  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poor ;  but 
if  the  lands  are  first  settled  the  advantage  accrues  to  the 
many  and  not  the  few — to  the  producer,  not  the  speculator. 
Third — It  is  unjust.  Public  wealth  is  simply  the  aggregate 
of  private  property,  and  if  private  enterprise  cannot  afford 
to  build  a  road,  and  the  public  consents  to  make  a  donation 
for  its  construction,  it  is  certain  that  some  interest  will  be 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 87 

taxed  which  will  not  be  benefited,  and  very  often,  as  in  the 
case  of  towns  lying  near  but  not  on  the  line  of  the  road, 
property  will  be  taxed  whose  value  will  be  impaired,  it  may 
be  destroyed.  It  is  asked  with  insidious  sophistry,  "  If  a 
majority  have  not  a  right  to  do  this  ?  "  No  !  This  is 
confiscation.  Waiving  the  consideration  that  a  majority 
vote  obtained  for  such  a  purpose  is  liable  to  be  a  result  of 
corruption,  the  rights  of  minorities,  the  rights  of  individ- 
uals, are  sacred.  Government  is  ordained  to  protect,  not 
to  destroy  them.  Taxes  should  be  levied  only  for  the 
necessary  purposes  of  government,  in  which  all  have  a 
common  interest.  Lastly — The  system  is  demoralizing. 
It  opens  the  door  to  corruption  ;  it  gives  the  strong  the 
advantage  of  the  weak ;  it  tends  to  build  up  the  few  at 
the  expense  of  the  many  ;  it  is  in  the  aid  of  the  concen- 
tration of  wealth  and  power,  not  of  their  diffusion. 

It  is  not  a  local  question  or  partial  one.  It  touches  all 
departments  of  government ;  it  concerns  the  very  theory, 
purposes,  and  spirit  of  all  government  ;  it  is  no  exhibition 
of  unfriendliness  to  any  man  or  set  of  men  ;  it  is  no  spirit 
of  envy  or  detraction,  no  disposition  to  depreciate  the 
sagacity  and  energy  that  achieves  success,  or  takes  from 
them  invested  rights  or  just  reward.  It  is  the  recognition 
of  the  danger  that  if  the  power  to  tax  can  be  levied  at 
all  in  aid  of  individual  interests,  then  the  colossal  fortunes 
in  the  hands  of  individuals  and  corporations  may  control 
the  exercise  of  that  power  to  the  very  limit  of  revolu- 
tionary resistance.  It  is  the  recognition  of  the  sacredness 
of  private  property — that  whatever  a  man  has  as  the 
result  of  his  industry,  economy,  and  enterprise,  is  his  own, 
and  shall  not  be  taken  from  him  to  be  given  to  another ; 
and  that  no  law,  no  majority  vote,  can  make  a  private  in- 
jury a  public  right.  It  is  part  of  an  attempt  to  shut  out 
from  legislation  all  schemes,  of  whatever  nature,  of  money- 
making  and  corruption.  It  is  a  protest  against  that  spirit 
of  speculation  which  is  absorbing  our  public  lands,  and 


1 88  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

converting  what  should  be  held  as  homes  for  the  toil- 
ing millions,  into  imperial  donations.  It  is  the  perception 
of  the  overshadowing  danger  of  the  hour,  that  this  Gov- 
ernment may  be  run  in  the  interest  of  money  and  not  of 
manhood — that  gold  may  become  king  and  labor  its  vas- 
sal. When  General  Jackson  vetoed  the  United  States 
bank  bill  in  1832,  he  used  the  following  language  : 

"  Distinctions  in  society  will  always  exist  under  every  just  Government. 
Equality  of  talents,  of  education,  or  of  wealth  cannot  be  produced  by  hu- 
man institutions.  In  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  of  heaven  and  the 
fruits  of  superior  industry  every  man  is  equally  entitled  to  protection  by  law. 
But  when  the  laws  undertake  to  add  to  these  natural  and  just  advantages 
artificial  distinctions  ;  to  grant  titles,  gratuities,  and  exclusive  privileges  ;  to 
make  the  rich  richer  and  the  potent  more  powerful,  the  humble  members 
of  society — the  farmers,  mechanics,  and  laborers — who  have  neither  the 
time  nor  the  means  of  securing  like  favors  to  themselves,  have  a  right  to 
complain  of  the  injustice  of  their  Government.  There  are  no  necessary 
evils  in  Government.  Its  evils  exist  only  in  its  abuses.  If  it  would  confine 
itself  to  equal  protection,  and,  as  Heaven  does  its  rains,  shower  its  favors 
alike  on  the  high  and  the  low,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  it  would  be  an  unquali- 
fied blessing." 

When  this  bill  was  vetoed  on  the  ground  that  the  bank 
was  a  moneyed  monopoly,  dangerous  to  liberty,  the  capi- 
tal stock  of  the  bank  was  $28,000,000.  We  are  now 
threatened  with  a  combination  of  capital  of  more  than 
a  thousand  millions. 

The  ideal  republic  would  be  a  community  where  wealth 
would  be  so  equally  distributed  that  the  possessions  of 
each  would  represent  actual  services  rendered.  There 
would  be  no  Vanderbilts,  Stuarts,  and  Astors,  and  no 
men  who  would  toil  through  a  lifetime  to  reach  a  pauper's 
grave.  This  ideal  has  never  been  realized  on  a  large 
scale,  and  there  is  no  historical  probability  that  it  ever 
will  be.  If  direct  legislation  can  do  little  to  prevent  ine- 
quality, it  should  do  nothing  to  foster  it.  And  legislation 
should  prevent  as  far  as  possible  those  immense  combina- 
tions   of   capital,   which  draw  to   themselves  more  than 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  1 89 

imperial  power.  The  law  should  do  this  in  the  interests 
of  the  rights  of  property  itself  ;  for  if  the  tendency  to 
centralization  continues  to  increase,  the  time  may  come 
when  social  order  and  the  tenure  of  all  property  will  be 
shaken  by  the  volcanic  outbreaks  of  revolutionary  forces. 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED   AT   STOCKTON,    AUGUST   30,    1873. 

Fellow-Citizens :  In  consequence  of  a  violent  cold  I  may 
not  be  able  to  address  you  at  any  considerable  length ; 
and  I  fear  I  shall  not  speak  with  more  pleasure  to  you 
than  comfort  to  myself. 

I  find  in  the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Taxpayers' 
Convention  of  this  county  a  specific  demand  that  the 
duties  upon  quicksilver  and  coal  should  be  taken  off,  and 
that  they  should  be  admitted  free.  I  have  long  believed 
that  the  duties  upon  these  articles,  and  upon  many  others 
in  the  same  category,  were  imposed  at  the  instance  and 
for  the  benefit  of  private  interests,  and  not  for  the  public 
good.  Perhaps  a  stronger  illustration  of  men  being  legis- 
lated into  riches  at  the  expense  of  others  could  hardly 
be  cited  than  the  provision  which  imposes  a  duty  upon 
quicksilver.  The  Government  does  not  derive  a  dollar  of 
revenue  from  it.  Its  only  effect  has  been  to  increase  the 
revenues  of  the  owners  of  large  quicksilver  mines.  It 
says,  in  effect,  to  the  consumers :  A  royalty  is  imposed 
upon  you,  not  for  the  benefit  of  Government,  in  whose 
blessings  you  are  equal  participants,  but  for  the  benefit  of 
certain  of  your  fellow-citizens  who  own  mines  which  could 
be  worked  profitably  without  it ;  you  shall  be  taxed  for 
the  private  advantage  of  some  one  whom  you  do  not 
know,  and  for  whom  you  do  not  care.  The  absurdity  of 
this  becomes  still  more  glaring  when  it  is  known  that  for 
years,  when  the  New  Almaden  mine  produced  more  than 
the  coast  consumed,  the  surplus  was  sent  to  China,  Mex- 


I90  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ico,  and  other  foreign  countries,  and  profitably  sold  there 
at  lower  rates  than  it  could  be  bought  at  the  door 
of  the  furnace  ;  that  it  was  shipped  to  New  York  and 
sold  there  cheaper  than  the  San  Francisco  price,  under 
stipulation  that  it  should  not  be  returned.  Further  than 
this :  for  years  quicksilver  has  been  a  monopoly  which, 
transcending  the  boundaries  of  geography,  has  had  the 
whole  world  for  the  field  of  its  operations.  A  combina- 
tion was  formed  some  years  ago,  and  I  believe  still  exists, 
among  the  great  quicksilver  companies  with  the  Roths- 
childs at  the  head,  by  which  the  production  of  each  was 
limited  to  a  fixed  amount,  and  the  particular  division  of 
the  globe  which  each  might  supply  was  duly  assigned. 
These  potentates  divided  the  earth  into  commercial  king- 
doms, and  enthroned  themselves  as  kings  ;  and  now,  let 
any  man  endeavor  to  develop  a  quicksilver  mine  in  this 
State,  he  will  find  himself  harassed — perhaps  ruined — by 
causeless  litigation  instigated  by  the  monopoly.  Looking 
at  the  duty  imposed  in  this  light,  even  though  the  mo- 
nopoly has  now  become  strong  enough  to  make  the  price 
purely  arbitrary,  the  principle  involved  makes  the  ship- 
money  which  Hampden  refused  to  pay  equitable  and 
right,  and  the  monopolies  granted  by  Elizabeth  public 
blessings. 

This  statement  of  facts,  which  is  its  own  argument,  will 
of  course  be  treated  as  others  of  a  like  nature  have  been 
before,  as  an  appeal  to  popular  passion  and  an  insidious 
attack  upon  vested  rights.  The  power  to  oppress  seems 
to  be  the  one  vested  right  which  it  is  never  safe  to  attack. 
Since  the  days  of  Hebrew  story  the  oppressed  have  been 
the  disturbers  ;  since  the  time  of  -^Esop  it  is  the  lamb  who 
muddles  the  stream. 

In  regard  to  coal,  although  the  Government  does  derive 
revenue  from  the  impost,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not  a  hun- 
dredth part  of  the  tax  paid  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  Gov- 
ernment.    The  proportion  of  imported  coal  consumed  to 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  191 

the  domestic  is  scarcely  appreciable.  Within  a  year,  on 
account  of  a  sudden  advance  in  the  English  price,  Ameri- 
can "  coal  has  been  sent  to  Newcastle."  Coal  being  a 
constant  element  in  manufacturing  power,  whatever  en- 
hances its  price  enhances  the  cost  of  every  article  of  man- 
ufacture ;  an  addition  paid  by  the  consumer  for  which  he 
receives  no  benefit. 

The  article  of  salt  furnishes  another  instance  of  the 
injustice  of  this  kind  of  discrimination.  It  is  of  universal 
consumption,  and  every  one  who  uses  it  pays  a  direct  tax 
levied  by  the  Government  in  favor  of  the  manufacturer. 
The  largest  salt-manufacturing  company  in  the  United 
States  will  to-day  send  salt  to  Canada  and  successfully 
compete  with  that  from  Liverpool.  Standing  on  the 
border,  you  can  buy  American  salt  in  British  territory  less 
than  in  our  own — certainly  by  as  much  less  as  the  amount 
of  the  duty  levied  by  Government  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
ducer. By  reason  of  natural  advantages  and  aided  by  this 
kind  of  legislation,  the  company  referred  to  increased  its 
capital  stock  a  thousand  per  cent,  without  levying  an 
assessment  and  pays  dividends  on  the  whole.  Where  do 
these  dividends  come  from  ?  Who  pay  them,  and  for 
whose  benefit  ?  How  is  it  that  such  abuses  arise  and  are 
tolerated  ? 

They  all  come  from  one  source :  that  while  we  all 
acknowledge  and  believe  that  governments  are  instituted 
for  the  equal  benefit  of  all  the  people,  yet,  in  practice, 
special  and  private  interests  are  able  to  secure  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  in  their  own  favor.  It  is  so  much  easier  to 
be  legislated  into  money  than  to  make  it  by  plodding  in- 
dustry and  economy  that  the  field  is  as  tempting  as  the 
rewards  are  great.  You  will  find  to-day  if  any  great  en- 
terprise is  projected,  the  first  thing  suggested  is,  how  can 
the  company  secure  some  special  privilege,  avail  them- 
selves of  some  law  already  in  existence,  or  procure  the 
enactment  of  one  that  will  suit  their  purpose?     For  in- 


192  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

stance  :  your  magnificent  valley  of  the  San  Joaquin  needs 
only  the  irrigation  of  the  waters,  whose  sources  are  in  the 
mountains,  to  make  it  blossom  as  the  rose.  How  is  it  to 
be  accomplished  ?  Do  men  meet  together  and  say,  Na- 
ture has  kindly  stored  this  water  for  the  benefit  of  the 
arid  lands,  and  now  it  shall  be  equitably  used  for  that 
purpose ;  and  in  its  distribution  we  will  endeavor  to  imi- 
tate the  impartiality  of  heaven  in  sending  the  dews  and 
the  rains  ?  No  !  The  first  step  would  probably  be  for 
some  one,  or  some  company,  to  get  or  claim  a  monopoly 
of  the  waters  ;  and  that  such  a  thing  is  or  should  be 
thought  to  be  possible  is  a  disgrace  to  the  civilization  of 
the  age  and  country !  Next,  get  a  monopoly  of  as  much 
of  the  lands  as  possible  ;  then  get  donations  of  lands 
from  the  General  Government  to  construct  the  necessary 
works ;  then,  such  contracts  and  donations  from  farmers 
as  will  enable  the  company  to  complete  the  whole  at  the 
least  possible  cost  to  themselves.  When  completed  there 
will  be  princely  revenues  upon  the  one  hand — and  quit- 
rent  tributes  upon  the  other  forever  ! 

I  am  not  now  arraigning  the  men  who  do  this,  or  would 
do  it.  Possibly  you  and  I  might  if  we  could  ;  the  temp- 
tation would  be  very  great.  But  I  do  arraign  the  system 
that  makes  such  a  thing  possible — which  places  such 
temptations  before  weak  and  erring  humanity. 

Now  I  presume  it  will  be  charged  that  I  am  opposed  to 
irrigation,  or  fear  some  one  will  make  something,  so  com- 
mon is  the  idea  that  injustice  is  a  necessary  ingredient  in 
every  material  improvement.  If  we  should  go  through 
the  revenue  laws  of  the  General  Government  we  should 
find,  if  we  could  ascertain  all  the  facts,  that  the  impost 
upon  nearly  every  article  in  the  long,  long  list  of  dutiable 
goods  had  been  adjusted  by  the  private  interests  which 
are  to  be  benefited.  There  are  many  reasons  for  this. 
One  is  that  members  of  Congress  and  public  men,  finding 
a  constant  stream  of  money  pouring  into  the  Treasury,  un- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 93 

consciously  fall  into  the  idea  that  the  Government  is  a 
self-supporting  machine.  They  gradually  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  the  Government,  as  such,  does  not  own  a 
dollar,  and  of  the  homely  truth  that,  having  nothing  of 
its  own,  it  cannot  give  anything,  directly  or  indirectly,  to 
any  one  without  taking  it  from  somebody  else.  Another 
reason  is  that  private  interests  are  constant  and  earnest  in 
their  own  advocacy,  and  are  able,  often  very  plausibly,  to 
direct  attention  to  a  special  good  while  the  general  evil 
is  spread  over  the  whole  country  and  is  lost  sight  of.  If 
every  inhabitant  of  the  United  States  should  on  a  particu- 
lar day  give  one  cent  to  a  particular  man,  he  would  find 
himself  in  the  possession  of  a  fine  fortune  and  no  one  would 
be  much  poorer.  It  would  almost  seem  to  be  like  getting 
something  from  nothing.  But  if  everybody  should  keep 
on  day  by  day  giving  a  cent  to  every  one  else,  we  should 
soon  get  back  where  we  started,  minus  the  loss  from  col- 
lecting and  distributing.  That  might  be  a  harmless 
pastime,  and  enable  each  of  us  to  play  rich  for  a  day  ;  but 
when  it  is  the  many  who  give  and  the  few  who  re- 
ceive, the  pleasure  and  profit  are  not  equally  divided. 
The  system  becomes  as  burdensome  to  the  multitude  of 
contributors  as  it  is  agreeable  and  delightful  to  the  class 
of  receivers.  Still  another  reason  is  that  a  member  of 
Congress,  finding  the  productions  of  other  States  pro- 
tected, is  driven  in  self-defence  to  seek  protection  for 
those  of  his  own,  and  goes  into  combinations  with  other 
members  on  the  agreement  that  you  shall  have  this  if  you 
will  give  me  that.  The  result  is  that  we  have  a  revenue 
system  so  artificial  and  complicated  that  no  one  fully 
understands  it ;  and  one  of  the  most  honorable  mercantile 
houses  in  the  United  States  has  been  compelled  to  pay 
$275, 000  as  a  forfeit  for  a  mistake  that  was  unintentional, 
which  did  not  amount  to  $3,000;  and  although,  taking  all 
their  invoices  together,  the  house  had  actually  paid  more 
duties  than  the  Government  was  entitled  to  collect.     Of 


194  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

course  the  Government  must  have  a  revenue,  and  a  large 
one ;  but  the  only  equitable  manner  in  which  it  can  be 
collected  from  imposts  is  by  fixing  the  duties  so  that  all 
that  is  paid  shall  be  for  the  Government.  The  funda- 
mental error  behind  all  this  is  in  the  idea  that  the  Govern- 
ment can  direct  the  private  business  of  the  people  better 
than  they  can  themselves.  Congress  is  an  able  body, 
composed  for  most  part  of  distinguished  men  ;  but  if  it 
was  composed  of  the  ablest  statesmen  and  men  of  affairs 
who  have  ever  lived,  from  Moses  to  Gladstone,  and  from 
Joshua  to  Grant,  and  they  were  all  as  pure  as  the  saints, 
they  could  not  direct  the  industries  of  this  whole  country 
as  successfully  or  as  equitably  as  can  the  people  them- 
selves, by  each  "  minding  his  own  business."  Is  this  Re- 
publican ?  Yes !  It  is  the  logical  deduction  from  the 
central  living  principle  of  the  Republican  party — personal 
freedom — that  man  shall  be  free  to  do  anything  which 
does  not  harm  some  one  else.  Is  it  Democratic  ?  Yes  ! 
It  is  the  direct  application  of  the  principle  of  the  party 
in  its  earlier  and  better  days — "  That  Government  is  best 
which  governs  least."  In  truth,  in  the  expression  of  this 
principle,  both  parties  have  been  right,  and  neither  has 
been  willing  to  follow  it  to  its  logical  results.  Governor 
Palmer  of  Illinois  recently  said  that  the  only  way  to  pre- 
vent Credit  Mobilier  transactions  and  exposures  was,  not 
to  elect  Credit  Mobilier  men  to  office.  The  only  way  to 
keep  them  out  of  office  is  to  have  it  understood,  settled 
for  all  time,  that  it  is  a  fundamental  and  unchangeable 
rule  of  action  that  the  Government  has  no  special  favors 
to  grant  to  any  one !  Until  this  principle  is  adopted,  the 
rich  and  the  powerful,  and  particularly  the  corporations 
which  represent  massed  wealth,  will  be  able  in  a  greater 
or  less  degree  to  shape  legislation  in  their  own  behalf  by 
the  constant  pressure  they  can  bring  to  bear  upon  public 
men.  As  it  is,  we  have  lived  to  see  the  day  when  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  and  able  of  the  United  States 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 95 

Senators  can  defend  the  Credit  Mobilier,  "  that  house 
built  to  receive  stolen  goods,"  and  to  assert  that  mem- 
bers of  Congress  had  as  good  a  right  to  take  its  stock  as 
to  take  stock  in  a  manufacturing  company.  We  have 
lived  to  see  the  day  when  men  who  have  grown  gray  in 
the  public  service,  and  whose  good  names  we  prized  as  a 
portion  of  our  country's  honor,  have  confessed  that  they 
were  bribed  so  skilfully  that  they  could  scarcely  tell  how 
or  when.  They  remind  one  of  the  swordsman  who  cut 
off  his  antagonist's  head  so  deftly  the  poor  fellow  did  not 
know  it  was  off  until  he  sneezed  ;  so  some  of  our  states- 
men did  not  know  they  were  decapitated  until  a  little 
snuff  of  investigation  was  thrown  in  their  faces,  and  they 
immediately  sneezed  their  political  heads  into  the  basket. 
The  mania  for  incorporating  seems  to  be  so  general  it  will 
scarcely  be  a  matter  of  surprise  if  the  time  should  come 
when  every  individual  man  will  incorporate  himself  for  the 
purpose  of  pursuing  his  avocation,  from  bootblack  up. 
There  seems  to  be  an  opinion  that  there  is  some  kind 
of  divinity  that  hedges  in  a  corporation,  and  that  it  has 
only  to  ask  to  receive.  What  the  great  corporations  do 
receive — what  they  take,  even,  with  strong  hand — is  among 
the  lesser  evils  of  their  management.  If  the  Government 
levies  a  tax  for  the  benefit  of  a  corporation,  we  at  least 
know  how  much  we  have  to  pay,  and  pay  alike  ;  but  when 
a  great  railroad  corporation  acquires  the  power  to  levy  its 
own  taxes,  they  have  not  even  the  virtue  of  uniformity, 
and  may  be  fixed  arbitrarily  to  punish  its  enemies  or 
reward  its  friends.  It  is  a  public  misfortune  that  the 
public  lands,  in  place  of  becoming  homes  for  millions, 
should  pass  into  the  hands  of  railroad  Seigneurs — and  not 
always  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  building  railroads.  I 
instance  here  a  case  which  must  be  familiar  to  you  all : 
That  division  of  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  which  passes 
through  your  country  was  known  as  the  Western  Pa- 
cific.     For   the    building   of   that  road  Congress   made 


I96  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

vast  grants  of  lands,  over  1,500,000  acres  to  the  Western 
Pacific  Company.  We  do  not  know  that  one  acre  of  that 
land  ever  went  towards  the  construction  of  the  road.  Cer- 
tainly no  considerable  portion  of  it  ever  did  ;  for  when  the 
Western  Pacific  Company  turned  over  the  franchise  with 
the  Government's  loan  to  the  Central,  they  simply  kept 
the  lands  as  the  price  of  the  franchise  ;  and  the  lands  thus 
became  an  out-and-out  gift  from  the  Government  to  the 
members  of  the  former  company.  The  instance  is  by  no 
means  a  solitary  one.  And,  indeed,  when  land  grants  are 
made  they  are  simply  used  as  a  basis  of  credit  upon  which 
to  build  the  roads  ;  then,  when  the  bonds  mature,  if  the 
roads  are  worth  what  they  cost,  of  course  the  lands  are 
clear  gain.  You  know  something  of  the  management  of 
railroad  subsidies  in  San  Joaquin,  and  how  the  big  com- 
panies absorb  the  little  ones.  Less  than  four  years  ago 
you  voted  a  subsidy  to  the  Stockton  and  Visalia  road. 
What  have  you  got,  except  an  endless  litigation  to  make 
you  pay  for  something  you  did  not  get  ?  But  the  gifts, 
grants,  loans,  and  subsidies  are  not  so  bad  in  themselves 
as  the  corrupt  means  by  which  they  are  sought,  and  the 
great  demoralization  which  results  from  the  introduction 
of  systematic  corruption  into  public  affairs.  Why  should 
the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  endeavor  to  control  the  whole 
politics  of  our  State,  and  secure  Representatives  and 
Senators  in  its  own  interest,  except  that  it  expects  to  use 
the  State  and  General  Government  for  its  own  benefit  ? 
To  what  a  pass  has  it  come,  when  this  creature  of  State 
laws,  fed  upon  the  people's  bounty,  is  able  to  wield  the 
whole  power  and  patronage  of  the  Federal  Government, 
so  that  every  federal  office-holder,  from  tide-waiter  to  the 
collector  of  customs,  from  watchman  to  superintendent  of 
the  mint,  holds  his  position  at  their  pleasure  and  subject 
to  their  surveillance ;  and,  speaking  in  their  behalf,  a 
United  States  Senator  can  openly  and  unblushingly  say 
that  he  will  teach  the  people  of  the  State  the  power  one 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 97 

United  States  Senator  can  exercise  in  the  election  of  a 
Senator  ?  How  is  it  that  a  system  of  espionage  has  been 
established  by  which  every  man  who  disagrees  with  this 
company  is  threatened,  and  injured  in  his  private  busi- 
ness and  public  and  private  character?  Was  there  ever 
before,  in  any  community,  a  despotism  so  petty  in  its 
spites  ;  so  far-reaching  in  its  power  and  disposition  !  It 
not  only  assumes  to  punish  individuals  for  the  expression 
of  opinion,  but  whole  communities — friends  and  foes  alike  ! 
It  threatens  to  remove  shops,  offices,  depots,  from  one 
community  to  another  for  political  effect  ;  and  puts  up 
public  accommodation  at  auction  to  the  highest  bidder. 
It  makes  the  gifts  it  has  received  a  power  of  extortion  ! 
Upon  this  coast  it  is  the  representative  of  the  evil  which 
I  have  endeavored  to  depict — the  central  figure  around 
which  all  other  schemes  gather !  Having  made  itself  a 
political  power,  it  must  be  fought  as  a  political  power. 
Against  its  tyranny  I  rebel — you  rebel — the  people  rebel ! 
Since  no  man  or  interest  singly  can  resist  it,  there  is  a  gen- 
eral resistance  of  the  whole  in  favor  of  each.  We  do  this 
in  no  spirit  of  wrath  or  vengeance,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
justice.  Tyrants  may  do  wrong — the  people  cannot 
afford  to. 

In  the  name  of  Justice  we  demand  that  the  people  shall 
be  allowed  to  do  their  own  voting,  unintimidated  by 
menace  ;  and  that  their  votes  shall  be  fairly  counted.  We 
demand  that  the  laws  shall  be  made  and  executed  for  the 
general  benefit  of  all,  and  not  for  special  interests.  We 
demand  the  just  and  equitable  payment  of  taxes.  We  de- 
mand free  access  to  the  courts,  and  that  that  brutal  rule  of 
action  which  wantonly  ruins  any  private  suitor  who  seeks 
legal  redress  against  the  company's  wrongs  shall  be  abro- 
gated. We  demand  that  fares  and  freights  shall  be  regu- 
lated by  law,  so  that  they  shall  be  uniform  and  just ;  and 
that  the  company  shall  not  discriminate  against  persons 
or  places  by  charging  higher  rates  between  some  points 


I98  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

than  between  others  of  the  same  distance  and  similar 
grades.  We  demand  a  full  investigation  of  the  transac- 
tions between  the  Government  and  the  company  ;  a  strict 
accountability  for  all  the  assets  placed  by  the  Government 
in  the  company's  hands  ;  and  that  there  should  be  repara- 
tion and  punishment  for  any  frauds  that  may  have  been 
committed. 

This  is  California's  part  of  the  great  contest  which  is 
everywhere  to  be  made  in  favor  of  a  "  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people."  You  have  a  ticket 
here  that  represents  the  people's  side  of  the  question. 
The  Springfield  Republican,  the  leading  newspaper  in  New 
England,  justly  styles  the  political  contest  in  California 
this  year  "  A  State's  fight  with  a  railroad."  But  the  fight 
has  more  than  a  State  significance.  It  is  the  beginning  of 
a  contest  against  all  schemes  that  have  for  their  object 
private  advantage  at  public  expense.  It  is  the  beginning 
of  a  contest  which  will  make  such  schemes  impossible  by 
restricting  government  to  its  legitimate  functions.  It  has 
been  complained  that  I  have  not  heretofore  suggested  a 
complete  and  adequate  remedy  for  all  the  evils  I  have  de- 
picted. I  do  not  pretend  to  know  what  final  solution  for 
the  whole  will  be  reached.  We  can  only  take  one  step  at 
a  time,  and  the  first  steps  are  plain.  If  the  question 
should  ultimately  come  between  the  Government  owning 
the  railroads  and  the  railroads  owning  the  Government, 
I  shall  certainly  favor  the  Government  ownership.  But, 
first  of  all,  it  is  essential  that  the  people  should  own  the 
Government,  so  that  when  the  negotiations  for  sale  take 
place,  the  railroads  shall  not  make  both  sides  of  the  bar- 
gain. In  making  this  contest,  they  say  we  have  gone 
outside  of  the  parties.  Wherever  it  has  been  found  neces- 
sary to,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  parties  !  Surely  it  can 
be  no  great  harm  for  any  one  to  say  what  everybody 
thinks,  for  any  one  to  do  what  every  one  knows  is  right ; 
and.  if  he  have  to  go  outside  of  a  party  or  a  church  to  do 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  1 99 

it,  still,  God's  sky  is  above  him,  the  free  air  around  him, 
manhood's  strong  heart  within  him — and  sooner  or 
later,  in  the  right  and  appointed  time,  he  will  surely 
succeed ! 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED    AT   UNION  HALL,  SAN  FRANCISCO,  JULY    20,   1875. 

Mr.  President  and  Fellow-Citizens  :  A  bolder  man  than 
I  am  might  well  stand  awe-struck  in  the  presence  of  this 
vast  audience  and  conscious  of  so  much  expectation.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  can  feel  to-night  the  signal  of  the 
popular  approval  to  the  cause  which  has  convened  us. 

The  representatives  of  the  People's  Independent  Party 
have  met  in  convention,  and  their  work  is  presented  to 
the  people  for  approval  or  rejection. 

Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it,  it  cannot  be  said  that 
its  declaration  of  principles  is  not  clear  and  explicit,  and 
its  candidates  are  not  widely  known.  Its  platform  sur- 
prised no  one — is  not  a  trap  to  catch  votes,  but  is  the 
sincere  expression  of  the  body  of  doctrine  on  which  the 
party  is  founded. 

At  the  head  of  its  ticket  is  the  name  of  John  Bidwell,  a 
man  who  came  to  California  thirty-four  years  ago,  and 
has  lived  here  ever  since.  In  that  time  he  has  committed 
two  very  grave  offences.  In  1867  he  was  the  most  accept- 
able candidate  of  his  party  for  the  office  of  Governor ; 
he  refused  to  abate  one  jot  or  tittle  of  his  manly  integ- 
rity, to  trade,  traffic,  and  barter  his  way  to  nomination, 
and  of  course  in  the  eyes  of  village,  cross-roads,  and  ward 
politicians  he  was  a  political  incompetent.  In  1875  he 
is  a  candidate  for  Governor,  in  obedience  to  a  very  general 
but  popular  sentiment,  without  the  seal  of  approval  of 
the  men  who  claim  the  right  to  make  and  unmake  Gov- 
ernors as  their  personal  prerogative.     These   are   offences 


200  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

which  the  people  may  condone — the  village,  the  ward, 
and  cross-roads  politician  and  the  California  Warwicks, 
never.  He  must  be  judged  and  punished.  Unroof  his 
house,  let  in  the  light  of  meridian  sun  upon  his  private 
life,  track  him  like  a  sleuth  hound  for  the  thirty-four 
years  in  which  he  has  seen  California  develop  from  a 
waste  into  what  it  is  ;  see  if  you  cannot  discover  some 
idiosyncrasy  of  manner,  some  fault  or  error.  It  may  be 
that  he  is  not  absolutely  perfect,  as  his  traducers  are.  If 
you  wish  perfection,  you  will  not  find  it  among  the  people, 
but  must  seek  it  among  those  who  make  politics  a  trade. 
But  tried  by  any  human  standard,  I  dare  avouch  that 
John  Bidwell  will  be  found  a  man  true  to  his  convictions, 
honest  in  his  purposes,  open  in  his  dealings,  and  charitable 
in  his  judgments.  He  has  not  sought  popularity  by  art, 
he  enjoys  it  only  as  a  tribute  to  his  character. 

But  I  am  not  here  to  eulogize  any  man,  or  to  vindicate 
him  against  aspersions,  however  unjust.  If  this  move- 
ment is  not  far  above  any  personal  considerations,  it  has 
no  value  or  significance  worth  your  attendance  here  to- 
night. I  believe  this  people  are  tired  and  disgusted  with 
that  kind  of  party  warfare,  offensive  indeed,  because  it  is 
offensive  to  common  decency  and  intelligence — tired  of 
that  servitude  to  party  leadership,  which  is  animated  only 
by  selfishness,  and  which  regards  the  possession  of  the 
machinery  of  government  of  more  importance  than  the 
object  it  was  devised  to  accomplish. 

In  view  of  this,  its  leading  idea,  I  ask  your  attention  to 
some  of  the  reasons  why  the  People's  Independent  Party 
should  commend  itself  to  your  favor  and  support. 

First.  It  is  a  protest  against  the  tyranny  of  party  dis- 
cipline, and  a  proclamation  of  the  sacredness  of  individual 
liberty.  It  is  the  first  political  party  to  announce  that 
none  of  its  members  owe  it  allegiance,  except  as  it  does 
right,  and  of  this  the  judgment  and  conscience  of  each  must 
decide.     It  carries  no  party  lash,  or  political  thumb-screw. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  201 

It  affirms  that  it  is  the  right  of  every  man  to  participate 
in  good  faith  and  honest  intention  in  its  councils,  but 
that  no  jugglery,  no  conp-d'etat,  shall  control  his  action 
to  the  support  or  sanction  of  a  wrong.  It  abjures  the 
old  test  on  canonization,  "  I  never  scratched  a  name, 
crossed  a  t,  or  dotted  an  *',  in  a  party  ticket."  It  is  an 
association  where  honorable  men  may  honorably  act 
together  for  a  common  object,  without  a  slavish  abandon- 
ment of  the  right  of  private  judgment.  For  years  it  has 
been  the  fixed  habit  of  both  political  parties  to  appeal  to 
the  people,  while  constantly  asserting  that  all  the  people 
belong  to  one  party  or  the  other — which  it  was  treason 
to  desert.  Thus  each  was  arraigning  the  other  before  a 
tribunal  which  both  maintained  did  not  exist.  That 
tribunal,  however,  which  really  does  exist  in  free  thought 
and  independent  opinion,  the  People's  Independent  Party 
desires  to  convert  into  a  political  power  which  shall  regard 
the  rights  and  interests  of  the  people,  not  as  the  football 
of  contending  factions,  but  as  the  real  object  of  govern- 
ment. It  invites  the  co-operation  of  all  who  concur  in  its 
general  purpose,  who  are  tired  of  the  thraldom  of  party 
discipline  and  would  like  to  throw  off  the  yoke,  without 
renouncing  any  of  the  rights  or  duties  of  an  American 
citizen. 

In  thus  publicly  proclaiming  that  individual  liberty  and 
the  right  of  private  judgment  are  superior  to  its  organiza- 
tion, or  to  any  party  organization,  in  leaving  the  con- 
sciences of  its  members  absolutely  free  to  pursue  the 
right,  as  they  severally  see  the  right,  we  believe  it  presents 
a  valid  claim  to  the  support  of  all  who  place  a  higher 
value  upon  liberty  and  conscience  than  upon  party  fealty 
and  success.  It  may  be  asked  why  this  cannot  be  attained 
simply  by  independent  voting,  without  concert  of  action 
at  all.  The  answer  is,  that  the  man  who  stands  abso- 
lutely aloof  from  all  organization  whatever  can  exercise 
only  a  silent  influence  at  best.     The  time  has  come  when 


202  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

the  active  political  influence  of  all  good  citizens  is  de- 
manded in  the  interest  of  good  government. 

Second.  It  is  one  of  the  leading  objects  of  the  People's 
Independent  Party  to  make  the  theory  of  local  self-gov- 
ernment a  substantial  fact. 

Whoever  has  intelligently  watched  the  current  of  events 
for  the  past  few  years  can  hardly  have  failed  to  observe  a 
strong  and  increasing  tendency  towards  a  centralization 
of  political  power  and  influence,  which,  if  not  checked, 
will  become  as  fatal  to  local  good  government  and  indi- 
vidual freedom,  as  the  theory  of  the  right  of  secession 
would  be  to  national  unity.  The  open  form  of  this  ten- 
dency is  not  its  most  dangerous  form.  If  an  officer  of  the 
army  should  decide  who  were  and  who  were  not  members 
of  our  Legislature ;  if  a  United  States  marshal  should 
decide  who  were  entitled  to  vote,  and  how  certain  persons 
would  have  voted  if  they  had  voted,  these  would  be  open 
acts  which  would  excite  popular  indignation,  and  find 
their  own  correctives.  But  if  through  the  use  of  Federal 
patronage  and  distribution  of  appointments,  conventions 
can  be  controlled,  then  the  machinery  of  State  and  local 
government  may  be  as  effectually  managed  at  Washing- 
ton, as  though  it  were  accomplished  by  open  force.  The 
vastly  increased  Federal  patronage  makes  its  use  for  any 
but  the  strictest  purposes  of  government,  dangerous  not 
only  to  local  self-government,  but  to  all  good  government. 
And,  if  the  possession  of  the  Federal  Government,  with  its 
powers  and  patronage,  is  to  be  made  the  great  object  of 
every  political  contest — local  or  national — and  the  people 
are  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  this  idea,  we  have  practical 
centralization,  all  the  more  dangerous  because  it  has  the 
popular  assent.  The  Democratic  party,  always  an  advo- 
cate, in  theory,  for  State  rights  and  local  government,  has 
been  even  more  at  fault  in  this  than  the  Republican,  as 
its  discipline  has  been  more  strict.  How  can  we  have 
intelligent  local  government,  if  every  local  election  is  to 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  203 

be  regarded  simply  as  a  part  of  a  great  national  campaign  ? 
if  we  are  to  obey  instructions,  always  stand  in  line  or  fol- 
low a  party  leader  ;  and  because  a  Presidential  election  is 
coming  off  after  a  while — it  is  never  more  than  four  years 
distant — any  one  who  breaks  ranks  must  be  shot  ?  It  was 
natural  that  this  idea  should  obtain  during  the  civil  war, 
when  national  questions  were  all-absorbing,  and  the  fate 
of  the  nation  the  subject  nearest  to  every  heart.  But  in 
time  of  peace  I  submit  that  it  is  subversive  of  the  true 
principles  of  local  government,  which  are  the  real  founda- 
tions of  national  greatness.  We  cannot  carry  the  princi- 
ples and  policy  of  peace  into  war,  and  we  ought  not  to 
bring  the  spirit  and  policy  of  war  into  peace.  The  election 
of  a  Board  of  Supervisors  or  a  city  Assessor  may  be — 
probably  will  be — in  the  next  four  years  a  matter  of  more 
practical  importance  to  you  in  the  daily  walks  and  busi- 
ness of  life,  than  that  of  President.  Separate  them, 
and  you  can  decide  both  intelligently  ;  unite  them  and 
sink  your  private  judgment  in  blind  partisanship,  and  it 
is  all  a  matter  of  chance  and  accident. 

The  People's  Independent  Party  hold  and  believe  that 
the  American  people  constitute  one  nation,  whose  unity, 
baptized  in  blood,  is  sealed  to  all  the  future  ;  and  that  its 
glory  is  not  in  any  splendor  of  equipment  or  concentra- 
tion of  power  ;  that  its  General  Government  can  best  be 
buttressed  and  strengthened  by  the  proper  administration 
of  local  affairs  by  local  communities  ;  that  the  true  sources 
of  its  greatness  are  in  the  intelligence,  industry,  and  mo- 
rality of  its  citizens — its  best  safeguard  in  their  willing 
affections. 

Third.  The  party  addresses  itself  to  the  consideration 
of  living  questions  of  pressing  and  immediate  importance. 
It  recognizes  the  truth,  and  makes  it  the  guiding  principle 
of  its  political  action,  that  the  people  do  own  this  Govern- 
ment, and  should  control  all  its  departments — national, 
State,  and  local — for  their  common  benefit,  and  not  in  the 


204  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

interest  of  rings,  schemes,  aggregated  capital,  or  great 
corporations,  that  this  shall  be  truly  a  Government  "  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people."  We  have 
passed  the  great  danger  which  threatened  our  national 
unity,  to  confront  another  which  threatens  to  canker  our 
social  and  political  well-being.  The  question  of  the  effect 
upon  our  political  system  of  vast  accumulations  of  wealth, 
the  increasing  disparity — the  widening  gulf — between  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  and  of  great  corporations,  with  per- 
petual succession,  is  comparatively  a  new  one  in  our  his- 
tory. Jefferson  and  Jackson  foresaw  it,  but  it  confronts 
us  now  with  startling  reality.  I  know  that  whoever  dis- 
cusses or  refers  to  this  question  is  accused  of  agrarianism, 
socialism,  communism,  demagogism,  and  all  the  other 
isms  which  are  considered  bad.  But  it  is  a  question  that 
cannot  be  sneered  out  of  existence.  It  will  not  down  at 
any  man's  bidding.  "  The  rich  do  grow  richer,  and  the 
poor  poorer ;  cunning  idleness  does  eat  the  bread  of  hon- 
est industry  !  "  the  powerful  can  avail  themselves  of  facili- 
ties of  law  to  become  more  powerful.  Somebody  once 
said  that  there  was  but  one  security  against  Vanderbilt's 
owning  everything — the  certainty  that  he  would  die,  and 
suggested  that  as  one  of  the  compensations  of  mortality  ; 
but  a  corporation  may  be  a  Vanderbilt  endowed  with  im- 
mortality. And  if  it  is  to  be  hereafter  held  to  be  the  law 
that  conditions  imposed  upon  corporations  may  be  re- 
moved, but  that  privileges  granted  are  in  the  nature  of  a 
contract,  and  not  repealable,  we  had  much  better  have 
Vanderbilt — unless,  indeed,  he  could  incorporate  himself. 
There  is  a  rapidity  in  the  growth  and  expansion  of  cor- 
porations which  is  quite  startling,  if  you  will  stop  to 
think  about  it.  A  few  years  ago  a  corporation  was 
formed  to  use  the  waters  of  a  spring  for  supplying  the 
city.  The  object  was  a  good  one,  the  beginning  small. 
Now  that  corporation  owns,  or  claims  to  own,  pretty 
much  all  the  water  available   for  the  supply  of  the  city ; 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  20  5 

its  charges  are  limited  only  by  the  ability  of  the  consumer 
to  pay,  and  it  estimates  its  property,  rights,  and  privileges, 
for  the  purposes  of  a  sale  to  the  city,  at  from  $15,000,000 
to  $20,000,000,  and  hopes  to  be  in  a  position  to  dictate 
terms  of  sale.  I  am  not  criticising  fhe  men  who  originated 
this  corporation,  nor  those  who  have  put  their  money  in 
its  stock  at  the  market  price  as  a  legitimate  investment, 
but  that  scheme  of  law  or  policy  which  makes  a  monopoly 
of  water  possible,  and  that  kind  of  politics  which  may 
give  a  corporation  the  control  of  a  municipal  government. 
A  gas  company  gets  the  right  to  lay  its  pipes  in  your 
streets.  In  a  very  short  time,  by  the  accumulations  of  its 
profits,  it  is  able  to  prevent  all  competition  ;  it  can  fix  its 
own  rates,  and,  while  paying  dividends  on  $8,000,000,  it 
will  pay  taxes  on  one-sixteenth  of  that  sum,  with  a  cheer- 
fulness that  is  refreshing.  You  can  see,  from  these  in- 
stances, what  an  immediate  and  direct  interest  local  cor- 
porations have  in  controlling  local  governments,  and  how 
easily  they  may  obtain  this  control,  if  you  elect  local 
officers  simply  with  a  view  to  the  Presidential  election 
and  the  distribution  of  Federal  patronage. 

Less  than  fifteen  years  ago  two  corporations  were 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  building  a  railroad  from  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Pacific.  The  project  had  been  dis- 
cussed for  years.  Its  accomplishment  was  regarded  as  a 
national  triumph.  There  was  a  charm  about  the  magni- 
tude of  the  undertaking.  It  was  a  road  that  was  to  cross 
wilderness,  desert,  and  mountains,  weld  the  continent  and 
wed  the  seas.  The  Government  was  in  the  midst  of  a 
war,  and  its  operations  and  expenditures  were  upon  a 
gigantic  scale.  There  was  little  time  or  disposition  to 
criticise  a  bill  in  details  which  promised  magnificent  re- 
sults ;  loans  of  credit  and  grants  of  lands  were  made  with 
a  munificence  which  seems  imperial  in  the  prosy  times  of 
peace.  The  corporations  represented  very  little  capital  of 
their  own,  but  very  great  executive  ability  and  an  immense 


206  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

capacity  to  receive.  In  less  than  twelve  years  from  the 
time  the  first  shovel  of  earth  is  turned,  these  corporations 
own  the  transcontinental  railway,  tracts  of  land  which 
would  make  an  empire,  the  steamship  communication  be- 
tween New  York  and  San  Francisco,  and  between  San 
Francisco  and  China,  and  all  the  principal  lines  of  trans- 
portation by  rail  and  water  in  California.  Without  local 
competition,  at  any  time  powerful  enough  to  crush  com- 
petition, now  they  can  fix  their  own  rates,  discriminate 
between  places,  between  individuals,  build  up  or  destroy, 
reward  or  punish.  By  getting  control  of  the  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  Company,  they  remove  through  competition, 
and  their  increased  profits  from  the  advance  on  the  through 
freight,  which  is  paid  by  the  people  of  the  State,  would 
support  the  common  schools  of  the  State — a  tax  levied  at 
the  sovereign  will  of  the  companies  themselves.  Their 
net  income  for  the  single  year  1873  from  the  transconti- 
nental road  alone,  and  before  the  increased  tariff,  was 
$12,886,793.28.  This  must  be  increased  to  at  least  $20- 
000,000.  Yet,  under  a  technical  construction  of  law,  they 
can  successfully  refuse  to  pay  interest  on  the  Government 
loan,  until  now  the  arrearage  amounts  to  $19,294,122.40. 
They  refuse  to  pay  the  one-twentieth  of  their  net  earnings 
to  the  United  States,  as  a  sinking  fund  for  the  redemption 
of  the  bonds  issued  for  their  benefit — bonds  which  will 
amount,  principal  and  interest,  to  more  than  one  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  to  be  paid  by  the  people.  Enjoying  all 
this,  they  resist  the  payment  of  their  taxes  by  every  means 
which  legal  ingenuity  can  devise. 

Think  for  a  moment  of  the  vast  interests  and  power 
concentrated  in  so  few  hands — the  railroads  across  the 
continent ;  the  lines  of  interior  communication  by  land 
and  water  in  California ;  the  steamship  line  between  New 
York  and  San  Francisco  ;  that  between  San  Francisco  and 
China.  All  this  obtained  within  twelve  years  !  When  and 
where  else  would  it  have  been  possible?     And  how  ob- 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  207 

tained  ?  The  Credit  Mobilier,  the  Contract  and  Finance 
Company,  the  Pacific  Mail  bribery,  are  only  incidents  of 
its  history.  Regarded  only  in  a  social  aspect,  are  the 
facts  not  startling  ?  When  you  reflect  that  Government 
is  but  the  effect  and  representative  of  the  forces  of  society, 
is  there  not  an  alarming  political  significance  in  all  this  ? 
"Out  of  politics!"  When  did  power  neglect  oppor- 
tunity ?  They  mean  in  their  hearts  that  they  are  above 
the  law.  They  mean  in  policy  to  run  the  political  rail- 
road underground.  They  mean,  in  fact,  "  when  the  lion's 
skin  is  too  short,  to  eke  it  out  with  the  fox's."  Is  not  the 
relation  of  corporations  to  the  Government,  and  their  in- 
fluence upon  it  in  all  departments,  a  living  question  before 
the  American  people  ?  Is  the  revenue  under  considera- 
tion ?  The  manufacturing  corporation  asks  Congress  to 
legislate  a  profit  into  its  business  by  a  protective  duty. 
Is  finance  the  subject  of  discussion  ?  The  National  Banks 
insist  upon  supplying  the  people  with  currency.  Great 
railroads  absorb  the  small,  combine,  dictate  terms,  and 
rival  the  Government  itself  in  power  and  patronage. 

But  the  remedy.  There  may  be  none  immediate, 
effective,  radical.  In  politics  as  in  medicine,  we  are  apt 
to  trust  too  much  to  specifics,  too  little  to  general  treat- 
ment. The  general  treatment  should  begin.  The  evil 
should  be  stopped.  I  know  of  no  better  means  than  the 
organization  of  a  party  which  shall  represent  the  people, 
and  stand  at  all  times  against  the  demands  of  special  in- 
terests, which  shall  recognize  that  "  when  rights  are  pro- 
tected, interests  can  take  care  of  themselves."  I  know  of 
no  better  means  than  by  bringing  the  people  together 
who  think  this,  that  the  moral  weight  of  their  numbers 
may  be  felt  as  a  political  power.  Take  party  platforms. 
How  nearly  they  read  alike.  But  for  some  references  to 
the  past,  and  the  use  of  party  names,  you  would  have  to 
look  at  the  head  lines  to  see  which  is  which.  The  Min- 
nesota Republicans  and  Wisconsin  Democrats  might  ex- 


208  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

change  platforms  in  the  dark,  and  not  be  conscious  of  the 
metamorphosis.  The  Ohio  Democrat  is  for  soft  money, 
and  the  New  England  Republican  is  for  hard  money. 
The  Pennsylvania  Democrat  is  a  protectionist,  and  the 
California  Republican  is  (I  guess  he  is — he  ought  to  be)  a 
free-trader.  Under  this  confusion  of  terms,  selfishness 
alone  is  consistent,  and  moves  to  the  accomplishment  of 
its  purpose.  As  everybody  is  for  the  people,  how  will  it 
answer  for  the  people  this  year  to  be  for  themselves  ?  The 
experiment  is  worth  trying,  for  its  novelty  at  least.  Let 
all  who  do  wish  substantially  the  same  thing  stop  calling 
each  other  names  and  quarrelling  about  terms,  and  face  the 
common  enemy. 

The  great  value  of  an  election  is  in  its  moral  significance 
— the  idea  it  expresses.  The  platforms  of  the  three  parties 
may  be  substantially  alike.  It  may  be  only  a  question  of 
sincerity.  One  may  be  the  letter  which  kills,  another  the 
spirit  which  makes  alive.  Let  the  Democratic  or  Repub- 
lican ticket  succeed  at  the  next  election,  and  it  will  be  a 
mere  party  triumph,  in  which  every  corporation  that  de- 
sires to  aggrandize  itself  at  the  expense  of  the  people  will 
have  its  share  of  rejoicing.  The  success  of  the  People's 
Independent  Party  will  be  a  triumph  of  principle  ;  it  will 
be  hailed  by  the  people  everywhere  as  their  victory,  and 
its  moral  weight  and  influence  will  be  worth  infinitely 
more  than  any  specific  measures  that  can  be  devised. 

Carlyle,  in  his  French  Revolution,  gives  an  amusing 
description  of  a  cartoon  of  that  period.  A  farmer  had 
called  the  chickens  of  the  farm-yard  around  him  and  ad- 
dressed them  in  the  most  paternal  and  friendly  manner: 
"  My  dear,  good  chickens,  I  have  called  you  together  to 
ask  you  in  what  kind  of  sauce  you  would  like  to  be 
cooked." 

"  But,"  exclaimed  an  old  rooster,  the  patriarch  of  the 
barn-yard,  "  master,  we  don't  want  to  be  cooked  at  all." 

"You  wander  from  the  subject,  my  dear  chickens,"  re- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  209 

plied  the  farmer,  "  the  question  is  simply  how  will  you  be 
cooked." 

For  some  years  the  railroad  and  its  allies  in  the  various 
schemes  and  rings  have  been  in  the  habit  of  convening 
about  them  the  people  of  this  State  in  different  counties, 
and  asking  them  how  they  will  be  cooked — whether  with 
Republican  or  Democratic  sauce.  It  is  rather  a  hard 
conundrum.  I  think  this  is  a  good  year  for  a  successful 
barnyard  rebellion,  and  an  active  determination  not  to  be 
cooked  at  all. 

Of  course,  old  party  leaders,  and  all  who  hope  to  obtain 
office  through  old  organizations,  object  to  a  general  union 
of  the  people,  and  an  obliteration  of  old  party  lines.  The 
Republican  candidate  for  Governor  objects,  because  he 
says  the  financial  management  of  the  State  Government 
has  been  extravagant,  and  he  alone  is  capable  of  reforming 
it.  I  am  not  here  to  apologize  for,  or  defend,  any  extrava- 
gance or  mistakes.  Something  is  due  to  the  truth  of 
history.  Under  our  system  of  Government,  the  Governor 
is  not,  as  Mr.  Phelps  seems  to  imply,  a  kind  of  viceroy 
who  determines  just  how  much  money  shall  be  expended, 
and  what  for.  That  rightly  belongs  to  the  representatives 
of  the  people  assembled  in  the  Legislature.  The  Governor 
cannot,  as  he  can  in  New  York  and  some  other  States, 
veto  items  in  an  appropriation  bill.  The  general  appro- 
priation bill  comes  to  him  on  the  last  night  of  the  session, 
and  he  must  sign  it  or  stop  the  wheels  of  the  Government. 
Mr.  Phelps  will  not  have  an  opportunity  to  learn  these 
facts  by  experience,  and  I  volunteer  the  information. 
The  Independents  have  never  had  control  of  any  Legisla- 
ture, or  any  representation  distinctively  in  any  until  the 
last;  and  all  the  appropriations  up  to  July  I,  1874,  were 
made  before  that  time.  I  shall  have  something  to  say 
hereafter  as  to  how  they  exercised  the  power  they  had. 
It  is  due,  however,  to  all  who  have  had  any  connection 
with  the  finances  of  the  State  in  a  legislative  or  any  other 


2IO  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

capacity,  to  say  that  the  expenses  have  been  large,  not 
from  any  misapplication  of  money  under  any  administra- 
tion, but  from  a  desire,  in  which  the  people  have  also 
shared,  which  is  in  fact  only  a  reflection  of  their  disposi- 
tion, to  do  in  a  few  years  what  it  has  taken  others  a  great 
many  to  accomplish.  We  have  almost  extemporized  a 
system,  which  elsewhere  has  been  of  slow  growth,  and  we 
have  not  gone  in  debt.  Our  State  Capitol,  buildings  for 
the  Insane,  for  the  University  and  the  Normal  School  are 
among  the  best  in  the  United  States.  Whether  this  be  a 
subject  of  pride  or  criticism,  they  were  all  planned  before 
the  Independent  party  had  an  organization  in  the  State. 
Our  insane  and  criminal  population  are  exceptionally 
large,  and  for  many  years  the  State  has  contributed  to  the 
support  of  the  orphans.  No  State  in  the  Union,  in  pro- 
portion to  wealth  and  population,  contributes  so  much,  by 
a  State  tax,  to  the  support  of  common  schools  as  ours. 
Connecticut,  which  has  one  of  the  best  school  systems  in 
the  Union,  and  about  the  same  population  as  California, 
appropriates  from  Treasury  about  $200,000  for  common 
schools;  California,  over  $1,100,000,  more  than  five  times 
as  much.  But  Connecticut,  being  a  densely  populated 
State,  each  district  can  support  its  own  schools,  while  in 
the  sparsely  settled  districts  of  California  they  cannot  be 
maintained  without  liberal  aid  from  the  State.  But  this 
is  all  lumped  in,  in  a  general  charge  of  mismanagement. 

Our  expenses  are  too  large  ;  they  can  be  reduced  by 
intelligent  criticism,  not  by  mere  fault-finding.  The  ma- 
chinery of  our  government  should  be  simplified ;  we  do 
too  much  law-making — build  on  too  extravagant  a  scale. 
The  reform  of  all  this  rests  with  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  By  careful  attention  to  details,  they  may  be  able 
to  give  generously,  as  they  now  do,  to  the  support  of 
common  schools — the  nurture  of  freemen  ;  to  shelter  the 
insane ;  to  give  such  poor  sight  and  hearing  as  art  can 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  21 J 

bestow  to  the  blind  and  deaf ;  and  find  it  more  humane, 
and  eventually  cheaper,  to  assist  in  caring  for  the  orphans 
than  to  abandon  them  to  the  chances  of  private  charity 
and  a  street  education.  These  unfortunates  suffer  for  no 
fault  of  their  own — no  one  will  be  willing  to  "  drown  them 
to  save  their  board." 

Finally,  the  Independent  party  commends  itself  to 
popular  favor,  because  it  affords  a  common  ground  upon 
which  all  can  meet  who  desire  to  forget  the  animosities 
and  heart-burnings  engendered  by  the  civil  war.  It  can- 
not  expect  the  support  of  any  Democrat  who  believes 
that  the  adherents  of  the  lost  cause  will  ever  again  rally 
under  the  stars  and  bars,  or  of  any  Republican  who  fears 
"  the  next  gale  which  sweeps  from  the  South  will  bring  to 
our  ears  the  clash  of  resounding  arms."  But  it  does 
commend  itself  to  all  who  accept  the  fact  of  history  as 
conclusive,  who  believe  with  Vice-President  Wilson  :  that 
the  rebellion  was  the  inevitable  result  of  conflicting  insti- 
tutions and  forces ;  that  it  is  over,  and  that  peace  should 
be  as  sunbright  in  its  glory  as  the  war  was  terrible  in  its 
darkness  ;  that  the  reconciliation  should  be  cordial  as  the 
conflict  was  awful. 

To  accomplish  this  is  the  work,  not  of  politicians  and 
statesmen,  not  of  President  and  Congress,  but  of  the 
American  people.  The  wound  heals  slowly  that  is  often 
chafed.  That  would  be  a  divine  moment  in  our  history 
which  should  strike  down  every  party  tie  and  party  name 
which  perpetuates  a  war  memory,  and  brings  the  people 
together  who  are  willing  to  forget,  in  a  solid  and  impene- 
trable phalanx.  "  The  American  people  was  the  real 
hero  of  the  war,"  and  must  also  be  the  apostle  of  peace 
and  reunion.  Why  should  they  not  come  together? 
Sumner  would  remove  the  names  of  battles  from  flags, 
because  they  were  remembrances  of  civil  war — why  can 
we  not  take  the  names  from  our  political  banners,  which 


212  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

are  also  reminders  ?  The  Vice-President  journeys  through 
the  South  everywhere,  received  by  all  classes  with  respect 
and  kindness  due  to  his  age,  character,  and  position. 
Fitzhugh  Lee  goes  to  Boston,  and  is  met  with  the  fervor 
of  hospitality,  by  the  men  he  met  in  arms.  It  may  be 
well  to  sneer  at  this  as  sentimental  gush.  I  prefer  to  be- 
lieve it  the  spontaneous  outpouring  of  reconciled  friend- 
ship— of  that  spirit  which  is  as  sincere  in  the  fellowship 
of  peace  as  in  the  struggle  of  war.  It  is  the  spirit  which 
animates  this  people,  and  manifests  itself  on  every  occa- 
sion. The  Centennial  Commissioners  appoint  Adams  of 
Massachusetts  and  Lamar  of  Mississippi  orators ;  Sher- 
man, who  marched  to  the  sea,  and  Johnston,  his  great 
antagonist,  as  Grand  Marshal  and  Master  of  Ceremonies — 
and  all  the  people  approve.  The  blue  and  the  gray  com- 
mingle at  the  graves  of  their  dead  comrades.  There 
comes  a  time  when  the  instinct  of  sentiment  is  a  truer 
guide  than  cold  philosophy  or  calculating  prudence.  Is 
this  a  time  to  hunt  up  every  act  of  lawlessness  and  outrage 
that  has  occurred  for  years  in  States  whose  civil,  social, 
and  political  institutions  have  been  broken  down,  and 
frame  them  into  an  indictment  against  the  people  ?  Is 
this  an  hour  when  we  should  forget  fraternal  peace  in  the 
memory  of  fratricidal  strife  ? 

But  they  tell  us  a  great  many  rebel  generals  have  been 
elected  to  the  next  Congress.  Why  should  they  not  be? 
When  the  Government  amnestied  them,  did  it  mean  to 
say,  "  We  restore  your  rights,  but  you  shall  never  enjoy 
them  ?  "  When  they  take  their  seats  in  Congress,  it  will 
be  with  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  men  who  are  willing  to 
die  for  their  convictions  will  be  most  ready  to  perjure 
themselves  for  place.  Parties  are  but  necessary  evils. 
There  are  great  moments  in  a  nation's  life  when  the  times 
should  rise  above  them.  Why  may  not  the  true  spirit  of 
the  people  have  way  ?     This  is  the  Centennial  year.     Let 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  21 3 

it  be  a  "year  of  jubilee."  Before  us  is  a  grand  outlook 
of  history.  Who  shall  estimate  the  power  and  population 
of  this  country  at  the  close  of  the  century  now  dawning, 
if  we  the  people  are  equal  to  the  divine  opportunity p 
Who  knows  what  trials  may  await  us,  what  temptations 
may  beset?  Let  us  challenge  destiny  as  one  people. 
Let  us  have  the  only  union  which  can  be  permanent — a 
union  of  hearts.  Let  the  true  feeling  of  the  hour  find 
genuine  expression  unrestrained  ;  and  reconstruction  will 
come — not  by  legal  enactment,  not  by  force  bills  or  writs 
of  law,  but  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  like  the  dawning 
of  day,  like  the  breath  of  the  morning,  like  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord. 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT   SACRAMENTO,    AUGUST   25,    1877. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  and  Fellow  Citizens :  If  any 
one  has  come  here  to-night  expecting  to  hear  from  me  any 
attempt  at  oratorical  display,  he  will  be  disappointed. 
The  candidates  for  the  various  orifices  in  your  gift,  between 
now  and  the  election,  will,  no  doubt,  discuss  in  your 
presence  questions  of  State  and  county  policy,  and  define 
their  respective  positions.  All  I  desire  to  do  is  to  have  a 
plain  neighborly  talk  with  you  about  the  general  situation, 
and  to  express  some  of  the  reasons  why  I  believe  that 
every  good  citizen,  who  believes  that  the  policy  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes  should  receive  that  generous  support  which 
its  success  demands,  and  which  its  purity  and  patriotism 
deserve  should  unite  with  the  Republican  party  as  the 
only  political  organization  that  can  and  will  stand  behind 
him  in  his  hours  of  difficulty  and  trial. 

As  I  see  you  before  me  to-night,  with  this  beautiful  sky 
above  us,  and  recognize  that  you  are  all  Americans  bound 
together,  as  I  believe,  by  the  common  ties  of  patriotism. 


214  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

I  recall  the  fact  that  the  broad  lines  of  demarcation, 
which  a  few  years  ago  separated  us  into  hostile  camps, 
have  passed  away  forever.  And  I  am  glad  of  it.  By  no 
act  or  word  of  mine  would  I  recall  any  of  the  animosities 
of  the  past. 

New  questions  are  crowding  to  the  front ;  great  ques- 
tions, which  demand  our  serious  consideration  ;  questions 
upon  which  public  opinion  is  undergoing  the  slow  process 
of  formation,  and  which  has  not  yet  crystallized  into  party 
organization.  Why,  my  friends,  if  you  should  take  the 
various  resolutions  passed  in  this  State  this  year  by 
the  Democratic  county  conventions  and  the  Republican 
county  conventions,  and  put  them  into  a  hat — and  if 
they  were  all  as  long  and  as  numerous  as  the  resolutions 
of  the  Sacramento  Democratic  County  Convention,  it 
would  take  a  big  hat  to  hold  them — and  then  draw  them 
out  by  chance,  one  at  a  time,  nine  times  out  of  ten  it 
would  puzzle  you  to  tell  which  was  Democratic  and  which 
was  Republican.  If  the  two  parties  would  hold  a  State 
convention  in  this  State  this  year  and  each  put  forth  a 
platform,  you  would  have  to  get  a  magnifying  glass  and 
read  between  the  lines  in  order  to  tell  one  from  the  other, 
or  who  the  things  belonged  to.  And  you  could  take 
either  and  change  a  few  words  and  "  presto  !  change," 
you  could  hardly  tell  one  from  the  other.  All  this  would 
have  been  very  different  a  few  years  ago.  Which  party 
has  changed,  or  has  there  been  only  a  change  upon  the 
surface  ?  Or  is  it  true  that  we  have  drifted  away  so  far 
from  our  old  anchorage  that  it  is  impossible  to  calculate 
our  departure  by  the  same  stars  ?  It  seems  to  me  that 
upon  the  old  questions,  the  vital  issues  that  separated  us 
a  fewr  years  ago,  the  Democratic  party,  like  an  army  in 
retreat,  has  surrendered  every  position  it  occupied  ;  sur- 
rendered each  after  a  hard  fight,  and  now  it  is  admitting 
that  all  the  distinctive  principles  for  which  it  contended 
were  wrong.     It  has  accepted  the  results  of  the  war ;  it 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  21$ 

has  accepted  emancipation ;  it  has  accepted  universal 
suffrage ;  it  has  accepted  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and 
fifteenth  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States — all  the  acts  of  reconstruction ;  it  has  ac- 
cepted the  greenback;  it  has  accepted  Hayes'  admini- 
stration. In  the  name  of  reason,  what  is  there  left 
for  it  to  do  but  to  disband  ?  Nothing  in  its  life 
would  become  it  like  the  leaving  of  it.  What  reason  is 
there  why  any  good  Democrat,  patriotic  in  his  impulses, 
who  does  believe  that  the  present  administration  is 
patriotic,  that  it  is  generous  in  offering  the  olive  branch 
of  peace,  and  that  it  is  sincere  in  endeavoring  to  reform 
our  civil  service,  and  which  ought  to  be  a  success — what 
reason  can  there  be  alleged  why  he  should  not  come  over 
and  stand  with  us — with  the  only  organization  upon 
which  he  can  rely  to  make  it  a  success  ?  Although  we  do 
seem  to  agree  in  opinions,  there  is  a  question  of  sincerity ; 
there  is  a  question  as  to  which  organization  you  can  act 
with  in  order  to  make  your  action  most  efficient.  Beneath 
opinion  there  is  principle;  beneath  principle  there  is 
sentiment.  I  know  that  neither  party  is  absolutely  per- 
fect. We  do  not  find  perfection  in  this  world,  even  in 
political  parties.  It  is  a  question  of  choice  in  whose 
hands  do  you  believe  the  destinies  of  the  nation  are  most 
secure  ?  Which  best  represents  the  American  idea  ?  The 
American  idea  in  politics  I  take  it  to  mean  just  this,  and 
nothing  more  :  Individual  liberty,  personal  security,  equal 
rights,  and  national  unity.  That  is  its  centre  and  circum- 
ference. Which  party,  by  its  history,  by  its  traditions, 
by  its  sentiments,  best  represents  the  American  idea? 

In  considering  public  questions  your  judgment  may  be 
warped  by  your  own  personal  interests.  You  may  shut 
out  the  sun  with  your  hand,  but  only  Omnipotence  can 
destroy  the  sun.  But  leaving  aside  all  questions  of  per- 
sonal interest  or  personal  prejudice,  there  is  not  one  of 
you  before  me  to-night  who  is  so  strict  a  partisan  that  he 


2l6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

would  not  be  willing  that  any  public  question  should  be 
tried  by  that  test — does  it  promote  individual  liberty, 
personal  security,  and  national  unity  ?  Let  me  ask  the 
question,  which  of  the  two  parties  that  divide  the  Ameri- 
can people  to-day — and  there  are  but  two — which  by  its 
traditions,  by  its  history,  by  its  sacrifices,  by  its  defeats, 
and  by  its  triumphs,  has  best  represented  those  grand 
guiding  principles,  liberty,  security,  and  national  unity  ? 
There  will  be  differences  of  opinion  about  the  various 
questions  which  arise,  but  if  that  is  the  test  by  which  they 
are  to  be  tried,  where  will  you  find  them  ? 

Looking  forward,  beyond  the  horizon  of  to-day  ;  look- 
ing forward  to  the  future  of  your  children ;  looking  for- 
ward to  the  destinies  of  this  great,  free  country  ;  if  either 
of  these  parties  is  to  be  destroyed,  defeated,  and  blotted 
out,  which  should  it  be?  I  have  no  concealments  to 
make ;  if  I  had,  it  would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  make 
them  in  the  presence  of  my  friends  and  neighbors,  who 
have  known  me  for  twenty-seven  years.  I  have  desired, 
I  do  desire,  that  all  the  animosities  that  have  character- 
ized us  in  the  past,  that  the  deep  impressions  that  were 
burned  into  us  by  the  civil  war,  should  be  cast  for- 
ever into  oblivion.  I  do  earnestly  desire  that  even  the 
memory  of  them  should  be  buried  beneath  a  common 
sod,  that  covers  alike  the  Union  and  the  Rebel  dead.  I 
do  desire  that  the  American  people  should  have  one 
common  object — that  the  dead  past  should  bury  its  dead, 
that  we  should  look  forward  alike  to  one  bright,  happy, 
and  glorious  future ;  and  I  do  most  sincerely  believe 
that  the  only  obstacle  to  this  consummation,  the  only 
cloud  upon  this  prospect,  is  that  the  Democratic  party 
continues  a  powerful  organization  in  this  country,  bound 
together,  as  I  believe,  not  by  a  cohesive  power  of  living 
ideas,  but  by  the  traditions  and  prejudices  of  the  past. 
Therefore  I  think  the  Democratic  party  ought  to  be 
destroyed  and  defeated. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  217 

It  was  my  fortune  to  be  present  at  most  of  the  turbu- 
lent scenes  which  transpired  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  the  American  Congress  during  the  counting  of  the 
Electoral  vote.  I  watched  the  clock  as  the  hand  measured 
the  hours,  believing  that  if  the  time  should  strike  when 
that  Congress  should  dissolve  and  the  result  of  the  election 
not  declared,  this  country  would  be  plunged  into  anarchy 
and  possibly  into  civil  war — bloodier  and  more  terrible 
than  that  through  which  we  have  passed.  I  shall  never 
cease  to  remember  with  gratitude,  with  respect,  many  of 
the  Southern  leaders  who  stood  up  in  that  Congress,  man- 
fully contending  that  the  contract  made  should  be  ob- 
served, standing  with  patriotism  and  good  faith  upon  the 
law ;  and  I  cannot  forget  that  there  was  a  large  element 
of  the  Democratic  party  there  loud  in  voice,  violent  in 
manner,  fierce  in  vituperation,  resisting  every  step  of  the 
count ;  resisting  it  by  filibustering  motions,  and  marking 
it  a  scene  of  violence  and  disorder  that  has  no  parallel 
in  legislative  history  outside  the  National  Assembly  of 
France  during  the  bloody  days  of  the  Revolution.  Voting 
with  that  element  of  obstruction  every  time  were  two 
of  the  Democratic  Representatives  from  California — Mr. 
Wigginton  and  Mr.  Luttrell.  These  men  talk  to  Repub- 
licans here  to-day — honey  would  scarcely  melt  in  their 
mouths — they  would  make  you  believe  that  they  were 
extremely  judicial,  characterized  by  a  lofty  patriotism. 
Then,  aloes  were  not  more  bitter.  Now,  inside  the  Demo- 
cratic party  to-day,  there  is  a  contest  for  leadership  be- 
tween this  violent,  disorderly,  turbulent  element  and  the 
conservative  element  that  was  willing  to  abide  by  the  law, 
and  the  resolutions  this  morning  received  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Democratic  Convention,  and  the  violent  speeches  of 
Mr.  Pendleton  and  of  Mr.  Ewing,  show  but  too  plainly 
that  the  violent  and  the  extreme  element  of  that  party 
will  attain  the  leadership ;  and  I  appeal  again  to  all  patri- 
otic Democrats  who  believe  that  with  the  honest,  just,  and 


2 1 8  NE  WTON  BOO  TB. 

fearless  administration  before  us,  we  can  have  peace,  se- 
curity, good-will,  harmony,  and  political  prosperity,  to 
come  over  and  unite  with  us,  and  make  that  administra- 
tion the  success  that  it  deserves  to  be. 

Now  these  are  general  political  considerations.  You  can 
weigh  them  ;  you  can  decide  them ;  you  can  determine  if 
there  be  anything  in  them,  and  I  appeal  to  your  sober 
judgment  and  to  your  sincere  patriotism 

A  Citizen :  I  want  to  know  if  that  purity,  as  you  say,  exists  in  the  Re- 
publican party,  what  is  the  matter  with  Senator  Sargent  and  Page  and 
others  ? 

Mr.  Booth  :  I  suppose  that  Senator  Sargent  and  Mr.  Page  and  others  can 
fight  their  own  battles.  I  have  not  contended  that  the  Republican  party  is 
absolutely  perfect — perhaps  it  is  not  so  perfect  as  you  are.  But,  my  friend, 
you  must  remember  that,  outside  of  yourself  and  myself,  and  your  friends 
and  my  friends,  and  of  your  wife  and  the  woman  I  hope  to  marry  [merriment], 
there  is  not  absolute,  entire,  and  immaculate  perfection  in  more  than  8,000 
or  10,000  people  even  in  this  very  virtuous  town. 

I  had  been  speaking  of  general  political  considerations. 
Now,  there  are  some  questions  that  are  crowding  them- 
selves to  the  front  that  we  cannot  ignore ;  that,  in  my 
judgment,  are  deeper  than  mere  questions  of  government. 
They  are  questions  that  belong  to  society,  to  our  common 
civilization ;  and  it  becomes  us  to  give  them  candid  and 
careful  consideration. 

Recent  startling  events  throughout  this  country  have 
disclosed  what  seems  to  be  a  contest  between  capital  and 
labor.  There  will  be  many  who  will  come  before  you  and 
who  will  try  to  make  political  capital  out  of  the  distur- 
bances which,  unfortunately,  have  so  recently  pervaded 
our  country.  Now,  right  here,  before  I  go  any  further 
upon  the  question,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  believe  I  am  as 
true,  as  sincere,  as  hearty  a  friend  of  the  laboring  man  as 
any  one  can  be  who  has  not  more  ability  than  I  have.  I 
am  too  good  a  friend  to  him  to  flatter  him.  I  respect  his 
judgment  too  highly  for  that,  and  I  respect  it  too  highly 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  219 

to  promise  impossibilities  for  the  sake  of  his  passing  favor. 
Some  remedies  that  have  been  proposed  for  these  social 
disturbances — for  this  is  what  it  seems  to  be  to  my  mind, 
— have  reminded  me  of  what  John  Bright  said  of  Disraeli, 
that  he  would  try  to  stop  an  earthquake  with  a  dose  of 
quinine.  Some  of  them  have  reminded  me  of  the  model 
constitution  that  some  wag  proposed  for  France  during 
the  days  of  the  Revolution.  It  read  something  like  this : 
"Section  1.  Everything  belongs  to  everybody.  Section 
2.  Nobody  is  charged  with  the  execution  of  this  decree." 
Some  of  them  have  reminded  me  of  the  man  who  said  that  if 
he  was  elected  to  Congress  he  would  introduce  a  bill  to  bring 
in  the  millennium.  If  anybody  could  discover  a  method 
by  which  the  man  who  has  to  labor  for  his  daily  bread 
could  fix  the  compensation  for  his  own  labor,  and  then  fix 
a  price  at  which  he  could  buy  the  commodities  produced 
by  other  people's  labor,  he  would  have  accomplished  a 
miracle  compared  to  which  the  finding  of  the  philosopher's 
stone  would  be  an  incident  of  every-day  life.  If  any  of 
you  know  any  means  by  which  this  thing  can  be  done,  you 
are  the  greatest  man  who  has  lived  on  earth  since  Julius 
Caesar,  and  I  hope  you  won't  keep  it  a  secret.  Carlyle 
has  said,  and  it  is  not  more  true  than  it  is  sad,  that  the 
saddest  sight  on  earth  is  that  of  a  man  who  is  willing  to 
work  for  bread  and  who  cannot  get  the  opportunity.  And 
it  is  a  terrible  commentary  on  the  Christian  civilization  of 
the  nineteenth  century  that  in  the  growth  of  society  this 
very  sad  thing  does  sometimes  occur.  Any  one  who  has 
been  looking  at  the  course  of  human  affairs  and  industrial 
pursuits,  even  for  the  last  few  years,  cannot  fail  to  see 
that  there  has  been  a  gradual  change  in  the  relations  of 
employers  and  employed.  A  good  deal  has  been  said,  and 
a  good  deal  foolishly,  I  believe,  about  the  antagonistic  or 
unfriendly  relations  of  capital  and  labor.  Now,  capital, 
as  capital,  does  not  think.  Labor,  as  labor,  does  not  think. 
Some  capitalists  are  wise,  and  some  are  foolish.     Some  are 


220  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

liberal,  and  some  are  mean.  Some  invest  their  capital  in 
bonds,  and  some  in  industrial  enterprises.  Some  laborers 
are  skilful,  others  are  unskilful ;  some  are  provident,  others 
are  improvident ;  some  are  industrious,  others  are  lazy. 
But  when  a  man  has  labor  to  sell,  he  goes  to  some  one  who 
wants  to  buy  labor,  and  then  they  are  in  the  position  of 
making  a  bargain,  and  the  laborer  wants  to  get  the  most 
he  can  for  his  labor,  and  the  man  who  employs  him,  as  a 
general  proposition,  wants  to  buy  his  labor  at  the  lowest 
price.  But  it  is  just  so  with  the  laborer  when  he  goes  to 
buy  anything.  Perhaps  he  does  not  buy  labor  directly, 
but  he  buys  the  commodities  that  are  produced  by  labor 
— everything  that  he  wears,  everything  that  he  eats,  the 
house  that  he  sleeps  under,  are  all  the  product  of  labor, — 
and  in  buying  them  he  buys  labor  only  one  degree  re- 
moved, and  he  buys  it  just  as  cheap  as  he  can,  so  that 
really  labor  patronizes  labor,  just  as  much,  and  a  little 
more,  than  capital  does,  because  there  are  more  laboring 
men  than  capitalists.  And  that  rule  runs  through  all 
the  transactions  of  life — that  the  seller  tries  to  get  the 
best  price  he  can,  and  the  buyer  to  pay  the  least  that 
he  can. 

A  few  years  ago,  not  a  great  many  years  ago,  a  large 
proportion  comparatively  of  the  labor  was  performed  by 
the  hands  with  a  few  simple  tools — it  was  handicraft.  It 
is  only  a  hundred  years  since  the  steam-engine  was  in- 
vented, and  what  a  powerful  revolution  that  has  worked 
in  every  industrial  pursuit.  Some  of  you  can  remember — 
I  can — when  mechanical  work  was  done  with  compara- 
tively few  tools.  For  instance,  the  shoemaker  had  his 
kit,  and  it  did  not  take  much  to  buy  all  the  tools  that  he 
wanted  in  the  manufacture  of  shoes  ;  the  carpenter  had 
his  chest,  he  had  his  jack  plane  and  his  saws  and  his 
chisels,  and  then  he  would  take  the  lumber  that  came 
from  the  sawmill  and  do  all  the  wood  work  in  a  house. 
Now,  the  wood  work  is  all  prepared  for  him  by  costly 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  221 

machinery.  I  recently  passed  through  the  railroad  shops 
in  this  city,  and  it  was  a  marvel  to  me  to  see  the  wonder- 
ful combinations  of  machinery  working  with  automatic 
precision,  with  almost  intelligent  ingenuity,  and  accom- 
plishing in  a  day  what  a  few  years  ago  could  not  have 
been  done  in  months. 

Then  another  change  has  been  going  on.  It  used  to  be 
that  the  mechanic  would  take  a  piece  of  work  and  he 
could  do  the  whole  of  it  himself.  Now  you  know  it  is 
divided  up.  One  mechanic  does  one  part  and  another 
another,  and  a  third  the  third,  and  the  fourth  puts  it  to- 
gether. Even  in  the  manufacture  of  so  simple  a  thing  as 
a  pin  it  goes  through  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  hands,  I 
am  told,  before  it  is  absolutely  finished.  Now  it  is  a 
necessity  of  labor  to  avail  itself  of  machinery,  of  expen- 
sive machinery  ;  and  the  fact  that  the  mechanical  laborer 
only  does  a  small  part  of  a  single  job,  that  it  is  divided 
up  among  so  many  hands,  has  necessitated  and  brought 
this  about — that  there  is  capital  invested  in  machinery, 
and  that  that  employs  an  army  of  laborers.  And  this  is 
bringing  about  gradually  a  comparatively  new  relation 
between  the  employers  and  the  employed.  Why,  it  has 
reached  even  further.  I  can  remember,  and  I  am  not  a 
very  old  man,  when  the  farm  was  regarded  more  as  a 
home,  a  place  to  bring  up  the  family,  than  as  something 
to  make  money  out  of.  And  the  father  and  the  sons 
worked  and  farmed  themselves  with  such  few  agricultural 
implements  as  were  then  known.  But  now  farming  has 
got  to  be  a  great  business.  To  carry  it  on  successfully 
much  capital  is  invested — invested  in  lands,  in  agricul- 
tural implements.  That  business  is  assuming  the  shape 
that  the  mechanical  and  manufacturing  pursuits  have. 

Now,  in  this  country  the  business  in  which  there  is  the 
most  capital  invested,  except  in  farming — the  business 
that  touches  every  other  business  most  nearly,  because  it 
controls  the  great  arteries  of  commerce  and  trade,  and  the 


222  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

business  which  directly  and  indirectly  employs  the  greatest 
body  of  men,  is  the  railroad  business. 

Let  us  look  for  one  moment  at  the  incidents  of  this 
strike  and  see  if  we  can  draw  any  deduction  from  it.  The 
first  step  was  that  most  of  the  great  railroad  companies 
combined  to  make  a  reduction  of  the  wages  of  labor. 
That  was  the  first  combination.  When  capital  organizes 
you  can  be  sure  that'  labor  will  organize  in  opposition. 
And  it  was  a  part  of  the  agreement  among  railroad  em- 
ployes in  many  instances  that  they  would  not  work  and 
that  they  would  not  allow  any  other  persons  to  take  their 
places.  Then  transportation  upon  most  of  the  great  rail- 
road lines  was  stopped.  The  business  of  the  country  re- 
ceived a  shock,  and  then,  as  always  happens  in  violent  and 
turbulent  times,  the  worst  elements  of  society,  the  thieves 
and  incendiaries,  came  to  the  surface  and  made  the  dis- 
order an  opportunity  for  plunder  and  riot  and  destruction. 
This  violence  was  repressed,  partly  by  the  military,  but  I 
am  glad  to  say — I  am  proud,  as  an  American,  of  the  fact 
— in  a  far  greater  degree  by  the  awakened  moral  sense  of 
the  people ;  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that,  as  a  friend  of  the 
laboring  man,  law  and  order  and  the  preservation  of 
society  had  no  stronger  advocate,  no  firmer  friend,  than 
the  laboring  man  himself.  And  some  of  the  inferences  I 
draw  from  this  are  these :  Anarchy  and  destruction  are 
remedies  for  no  evil,  and  the  honest  laborer  of  this  coun- 
try scorns  any  association  whatever  with  thieves  and  in- 
cendiaries. Second — That  we  need  no  great  standing 
army  in  this  country.  I  am  not  of  those  to  be  frightened 
from  my  propriety  by  the  passing  disorders,  into  adopting 
and  equipping  a  great  standing  army,  which  in  all  coun- 
tries and  in  all  ages  has  been  a  ready-made  instrument  of 
despotism.  When  the  time  comes,  if  it  shall  come,  when 
the  American  people  need  a  standing  army  to  police  the 
land,  to  repress  and  keep  in  subjection  public  sentiment, 
they  will   have    forfeited    their   right  to  be  a  Republic. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  22$ 

Third — When  capital  organizes,  labor,  too,  will  organize, 
and  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  am  hopeful  for  the  future  for  it.  It  is 
well  that  these  two  principles,  whether  they  be  friends  or 
antagonists,  should  stand  face  to  face  in  an  open  field  and 
upon  equal  terms.  If  capital  has  the  advantage  of  an  in- 
trenched position,  labor  has  the  advantage  of  numbers. 
Tell  me  not  that  gold  is  king,  or  that  commerce  is  king, 
or  that  cotton  is  king.  Labor  is  the  king  of  this  earth, 
with  its  brawny  arms  and  giant  face  bronzed  and  marked 
with  toil  and  care.  I  trust  that  the  hour  will  come 
when  he  will  be  crowned  in  triumph,  and  I  am  hope- 
ful that  through  this  organization  of  labor  the  time  will 
come — not  in  your  day,  perhaps,  not  in  mine,  but  in  the 
future  not  distant — when  organized,  intelligent  labor  shall 
be  able  to  own  and  control  all  the  tools  and  machinery 
necessary  for  production,  and  shall  have  a  full  and  un- 
divided share  in  all  the  blessings  it  creates. 

And  I  want  to  say  this  right  here,  that  while  I  do  not 
desire,  while  no  one  desires,  to  apologize  for  the  violence, 
I  know  this  to  be  a  fact — that  whenever  any  great  mass 
of  men  is  driven  from  any  cause  backward  and  backward 
towards  the  sharp  pricks  of  starvation,  the  reaction  will 
come.  When  Jefferson  was  in  France  before  the  Revo- 
lution, whose  volcanic  eruption  shook  the  very  founda- 
tions of  civilized  society  throughout  the  world,  he  went 
among  the  peasants.  He  saw  how  they  lived,  saw  the 
beds  they  slept  upon,  the  fare  they  ate,  and  he  said  that 
from  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  a  revolution  was  in- 
evitable. The  prophesy  may  not  be  one  that  we  desire 
to  lay  to  ourselves,  but  if  ever  the  conditions  of  American 
society  become  such  that  the  great  mass  of  the  laboring 
men  cannot  have  not  only  their  bread,  but  cannot  gratify 
those  wants  which  civilization  has  made  a  part  of  our 
second  nature,  there  will  come  a  revolution.  I  know  that 
often  the  lot  of  the  man  who  toils  for  his  daily  bread 
seems  hard.     I  know  it  is  hard  to  have  to  sell  Monday's 


224  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

labor  to  get  Tuesday's  bread  for  wife  and  children.  But, 
my  friends,  the  lines  of  this  country  have  fallen  to  us  in 
comparatively  pleasant  places.  There  is  no  other  country 
in  the  world  where  daily  labor  can  be  so  secure  of  a 
bountiful  supply  of  bread  as  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  There  is  no  other  country  where  the  oppor- 
tunities for  education  of  his  children  are  so  free  and  so 
open  ;  and  there  is  no  other  country  where  he  can  stand 
erect  in  the  conscious  dignity  of  his  manhood. 

It  is  not  true  that  the  seeds  of  this  discord  were  sown 
by  the  system  under  which  railroads  in  this  country  have 
been  constructed  for  the  last  twenty  years.  Under  this 
system  fraud  has  been  organized.  Railroads  have  too 
often  been  built,  not  so  much  for  the  legitimate  profits  of 
their  operation  as  for  the  profit  that  could  be  made  out  of 
their  construction,  and  the  losses  to  the  actual  capital  of 
the  country  through  this  have  been  ten-fold  greater  than 
by  the  destruction  from  strikes  and  riots.  They  were 
built,  not  as  cheaply  as  possible,  but  at  the  greatest  possi- 
ble cost,  that  the  companies,  the  inside  rings,  that  con- 
structed them,  might  realize  inordinate  profits,  and  that 
the  small  stockholders  and  the  tax-payers  should  pay 
them.  And  while  we  are  wiping  the  outside  of  this  cup, 
it  becomes  us  to  consider  at  least  something  on  the  inside. 
While  we  are  whitewashing  this  sepulchre  let  us  not  forget 
that  within  it  are  corruption  and  dead  men's  bones.  Open 
violence  is  an  enemy  that  can  be  met  upon  the  threshold  ; 
but  fraud  is  an  insidious  disease  which  preys  upon  the 
vitals. 

Now,  my  friends,  I  wish  to  ask  you  again,  do  you  know 
of  any  ready-made,  instantaneous  remedy  for  this  relation 
that  exists  between  the  employers  and  the  employed  ?  Do 
you  know  any  means  by  which  any  man  who  is  willing  to 
sell  labor  can  secure  the  amount  for  his  services  which  he 
believes  he  is  justly  entitled  to  ?  There  are  persons  who 
believe  that  if  the  silver  dollar  is  remonetized   it  would 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  22$ 

be  a  kind  of  panacea  for  all  the  evils  that  flesh  is  heir  to. 
But  suppose  you  should  try  it  ?  Do  you  think  it  would 
be  any  easier  to  get  a  silver  dollar  that  contains  412  8-10 
grains  of  standard  silver  than  it  is  to  get  now  two  half 
dollars  that  contain  383  grains  ?  There  are  those  who  be- 
lieve that  an  unlimited  issue  of  greenbacks  would  bring 
about  a  kind  of  financial  millennium.  Do  you  know  any 
means  by  which  this  Government  could  enrich  all  its 
people,  when,  in  fact,  the  Government  is  to  be  carried  on 
every  day,  every  hour,  by  taxes  paid  by  the  people  ?  You 
will  not  find  any  instantaneous  relief  by  any  heroic  treat- 
ment. This  world  will  not  be  made  a  paradise  except 
through  the  slow,  patient  centuries,  thousands  of  years 
of  labor  by  its  inhabitants.  Many  measures  will  be  pro- 
posed. I  suggest  that  they  all  be  tried  by  the  test  of  the 
Republican  doctrine  of  American  ideas — personal  security, 
individual  liberty,  national  unity. 

I  am  told  that  my  friend  Judge  Curtis  proposes  that  we 
should  get  some  kind  of  relief  by  paying  the  public  debt 
of  this  country  in  greenbacks.  Let  us  examine  the  propo- 
sition for  a  moment  and  see  whether  it  is  right  and  politic. 
I  confess  I  do  not  know  exactly  how  he  intends  to  get  the 
greenbacks  to  pay  the  public  debt — whether  he  means — 
and  Pendleton  of  Ohio  I  believe  has  the  same  idea — I  do 
not  know  whether  they  mean  that  we  should  set  the  pub- 
lic printing-presses  to  work  and  print  off  greenbacks  and 
tell  the  men  who  hold  our  bonds  to  bring  them  in  and  get 
greenbacks  for  them  or  get  nothing,  or  whether  they  mean 
that  the  volume  of  greenbacks  remaining  as  it  is,  all  the 
revenues  of  the  Government  shall  be  collected  in  green- 
backs, and  these  revenues  applied  to  the  payment  of  the 
public  debt  after  the  payment  of  current  expenses.  Would 
either  be  honest  ?  Would  it  be  right  to  say  to  the  men 
who  hold  the  securities  of  our  Government  that  are  draw- 
ing interest,  "  Here,  you  must  come  and  take  our  promise 
to  pay  that  does  not  bear  any  interest  or  you  shall  have 

*5 


226  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

nothing  ?  "  Now  I  know  that  is  often  a  popular  outcry- 
made  against  bondholders.  They  are  supposed  to  be  a 
class  of  people  living  off  of  other  men,  and  whose  interests 
are  entirely  distinct  and  antagonistic  to  the  others.  To 
me  it  does  not  matter  whether  a  bond  is  held  by  a  poor 
man  or  a  rich  man,  so  far  as  the  obligation  of  the  country 
to  pay  it  is  concerned.  In  truth,  most  of  the  bonds  in 
this  country  are  held  by  banks — savings  banks — invested 
in  estates  for  the  benefit  of  widows  and  orphans.  Many 
are  held  abroad,  and  when  they  are  held  abroad  they  are 
held  often,  very  generally,  I  think,  by  comparatively  poor 
persons.  But  whether  they  are  held  by  the  poor  or  the 
rich  does  not  make  one  particle  of  difference  in  the  obli- 
gation to  pay.  Does  it  ?  The  honor  of  the  country  is 
pledged  and  that  cannot  be  forfeited.  By  maintaining 
the  credit  of  the  country  in  good  faith,  we  have  been  able 
to  reduce  the  interest  on  our  public  debt,  until  we  can 
now  place  four-per-cent.  bonds  at  par.  Seven  years  ago 
we  were  paying  six  per  cent,  interest  upon  all  the  funded 
indebtedness  of  the  country.  We  then  owed  something 
more  than  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  and  by  ful- 
filling the  contract  to  the  letter  we  were  able  to  place  a 
loan,  first  at  five  per  cent,  and  then  at  four  per  cent.,  and 
now  simply  by  maintaining  our  credit  we  should  be  able 
to  fund  the  whole  at  four  per  cent,  certainly  and  I  believe 
for  less,  and  every  one  per  cent,  that  we  take  off  reduces 
the  interest  that  you  pay  per  annum  eighteen  millions  of 
dollars.  Now,  is  not  honesty  the  best  policy  ?  Does  n't 
it  pay  ?  If  you  commence  tampering  with  your  credit,  if 
you  commence  trying  to  pay  it  as  my  friends  suggest,  in 
silver,  is  not  it  probable  that  you  will  lose  more  than  you 
will  gain  ?  The  four-per-cent.  bonds  we  are  now  selling 
are  forty  years.  A  three-per-cent.  bond  at  sixty,  or  at  the 
outside  a  hundred  years,  could  be  placed  upon  the  market 
as  readily  as  they  can.  And  I  do  candidly  think  that  this 
generation  is  paying  off  the  public  debt  of  this  country 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  227 

rather  more  rapidly  than  they  ought.  That  we  might  very 
well  if  we  placed  it  so  that  it  is  absolutely  secure,  the  faith 
of  the  country  pledged  for  its  redemption,  we  might  just 
as  well  spread  it  out  over  a  few  more  generations,  and 
not  burden  ourselves  with  the  payment  of  it  so  rapidly 
as  we  do. 

A  good  deal  has  been  said,  and  it  is  one  of  the  questions 
that  interest  us,  on  the  subject  of  currency.  Now,  on  this 
subject,  I  do  not  understand  that  either  the  Democratic 
party  or  the  Republican  party  has  a  fixed  policy.  That 
is  to  say,  Democrats  differ  with  each  other  in  regard  to 
what  the  currency  ought  to  be,  and  Republicans  differ 
among  themselves  in  regard  to  our  financial  policy.  Gov- 
ernor Hendricks,  before  he  was  a  candidate  for  Vice- 
President,  said  that  if  he  should  leave  his  home  in  Indiana 
to  travel  to  the  Atlantic  sea-board,  if  he  wanted  to  be  a 
Democrat  all  the  time,  he  would  have  to  change  his  opin- 
ions on  the  currency  question  every  time  he  crossed  a 
State  line ;  and  that  sometimes  in  the  various  counties  he 
would  get  bewildered  and  mixed  up  so  that  he  would  not 
know  what  his  opinions  were,  or  whether  he  had  any. 
Fernando  Wood,  when  he  was  asked  (I  mean  in  private 
conversation,  jocularly)  what  his  opinion  on  currency  was, 
said  that  one  of  the  members  from  New  York  had  gone 
crazy  trying  to  solve  the  question,  and  he  did  not  propose 
to  follow  him ;  that  he  was  going  to  keep  out  of  that 
matter. 

Now  money  is  a  good  thing  to  have.  It  is  convenient 
to  have  in  the  house ;  but  it  is  rather  a  dry  subject  in  the 
abstract  to  talk  about.  I  have  my  opinions  in  regard  to 
currency,  and,  although  I  have  thought  about  it  a  great 
deal,  I  hope  to  keep  out  of  the  Insane  Asylum. 

I  believe,  first,  that  we  should  have  a  currency  of  uni- 
form value.  In  this  community  we  constantly  experience 
a  good  many  of  the  inconveniences  and  a  good  many  of 
the  losses  of  having  a  currency  of  mixed  values — that  is, 


228  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

your  silver  coin  is  worth  less  in  the  transactions  of  life 
than  your  gold  coin.  Experience  establishes  the  fact  that 
credit  in  some  form  will  circulate  as  money.  Even  here, 
although  we  have  a  gold  and  silver  currency,  the  mass  of 
transactions  are  made  with  bank  checks,  which  represent 
simply  credit.  We  shall  have  for  a  circulating  medium 
for  the  whole  country  either  bank  credit  or  national  credit. 
I  prefer  national  credit.  I  believe  that  the  note  of  this 
Government  is  as  good  as  the  note  of  any  bank.  I  be- 
lieve that  its  volume  can  be  regulated  by  and  through 
the  Government  as  well  as  by  and  through  the  officers  of 
a  bank. 

One  thing  I  forgot,  and  I  want  to  refer  to  it  before  I  go 
on,  that  is  the  wonderful  change  that  has  come  over  the 
Democrats,  who  now  insist  upon  paying  the  bonds  of  the 
Government  in  greenbacks,  during  the  past  seven  or  eight 
or  nine  years.  When  the  greenbacks  were  issued  they  told 
us  that  they  were  unconstitutional.  There  was  scarcely  a 
Democratic  judge  in  the  land  who  did  not  decide  that  the 
legal-tender  feature  of  the  greenback  was  unconstitutional. 
And  when  Judge  Chase  left  the  Treasury  and  went  on  the 
Supreme  Bench  and  decided  that  the  greenback  which  he 
himself  had  made  was  unconstitutional,  the  Democratic 
party  at  once  took  him  into  its  embrace  for  that  decision. 

Do  you  know  how  the  bank  note  under  the  present 
system  of  National  Banks  gets  into  circulation?  If  you 
wanted  to  organize  a  national  bank — we  have  none  of 
them  in  this  State  except  the  National  Gold  Banks — five 
of  you  might  have  $100,000  of  national  bonds,  and  you 
take  them  to  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  and  you 
deposit  them  there,  and  the  United  States  Government 
would  give  you  $90,000  in  greenbacks  that  you  could  take 
to  your  bank  and  loan  them  for  all  the  interest  that  you 
could  get,  while  at  the  same  time  the  Government  was 
paying  you  the  interest  on  the  bonds  that  you  left  in 
pledge  for  them.     This  seems  to  be  an  entirely  unneces- 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  2  29 

sary  machinery.  I  do  not  know  why  the  United  States 
Government  should  not  issue  its  credit  to  circulate  as 
money  just  as  well  directly  as  through  a  bank.  What  is 
the  use  ?  I  do  not  know  why  if  you  have  a  bond  and  go  to 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  and  say  \  "  Here,  I  want 
something  that  will  circulate  as  money  for  this ;  you  keep 
it  for  me  until  I  bring  the  money  back,"  that  it  should 
not  just  as  well  give  it  to  you  as  to  the  bank,  and  then 
keep  the  bond  and  not  pay  anybody  any  interest  on  it 
until  you  or  somebody  else  who  held  the  note  for  it  should 
take  it  back  and  get  the  bond  you  left  in  pledge. 

I  know  this  whole  idea  has  been  ridiculed,  for  most 
part  by  bankers— by  men  who  have  studied  the  science 
of  finance  as  it  has  been  written  by  them.  I  have  read 
almost  everything  that  has  been  submitted  to  me  on 
either  side  of  the  question — the  bank  side — and  I  have 
never  seen  anything  that  seemed  to  me  to  be  anything 
like  an  argument.  I  am  in  favor  of  some  such  scheme  as 
that — the  Government  supplying  all  the  notes  that  circu- 
late as  money  directly — because  it  is  fair  and  right ;  be- 
cause it  saves  to  the  people  the  whole  of  the  interest  on 
all  the  notes  that  circulate  as  money ;  because  I  believe  it 
to  be  the  just  prerogative  of  the  Government  and  one 
not  to  be  peddled  out ;  because  I  believe  it  can  be  made 
the  best  currency  that  any  people  ever  had  ;  and  because 
I  fear  the  influence  upon  a  General  Government  of  so 
powerful  an  interest  as  the  National  Banks  have  become. 
I  have  said  that  this  is  not  a  party  question,  but  I  think 
my  ideas  are  a  fair  deduction  from  the  general  principle 
which  underlies  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party ; 
the  scheme  is  a  legitimate  deduction  from  personal  secur- 
ity, equal  rights,  and  national  unity. 

My  friends,  I  have  touched  on  a  dry  subject  and  have 
detained  you  too  long.  It  is  hard  sometimes  to  revert  to 
general  principles,  but  I  will  ask  you  to  try  all  the  meas- 
ures— all   the   measures  of  daily  policy — by  the  test  of 


230  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Republican  principles.  I  invoke  that  you  sustain  the 
national  administration.  There  are  those  who  predict 
that  the  principles  of  President  Hayes  cannot  be  carried 
out,  because  it  places  the  politics  of  this  nation  upon  too 
high  a  plane.  It  is  said  that  it  is  right  but  impracticable. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  political  administration  of  this 
country  can  be  placed  upon  too  high  a  plane  to  suit  the 
people.  I  believe  the  more  patriotic  you  make  it,  the 
more  free  from  corruption  and  selfishness,  the  higher  and 
the  more  assured  its  success  will  be.  Do  you  not  believe 
that  with  the  policy  of  this  administration  carried  out  in 
all  the  departments  of  the  Government  that  we  can  enter 
upon  an  era  of  prosperity  and  of  purity  of  national  glory 
such  as  we  have  never  before  known  ?  Do  you  not  be- 
lieve that  it  means  peace,  that  it  means  honesty,  that  it  is 
patriotic,  that  while  we  stand  together  upon  this  platform 
we  may  face  the  evils  of  to-morrow,  whatever  they  may 
be  ?  I  know  that  we  are  passing  through  difficult  times. 
I  know  that  there  is  discontent,  but  I  have  faith  in  the 
American  people  ;  I  have  faith  in  the  American  ideas,  and 
I  have  faith  that  the  administration  now  in  power  will 
exemplify  them  in  all  its  actions. 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED    AT    SAN    FRANCISCO,    1 879. 

I  believe  that  the  best  interests  of  the  State  and  nation, 
the  good  order  of  society,  the  general  welfare,  the  protec- 
tion of  each  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  own,  the  security  of 
equal  rights  before  the  law,  will  be  subserved  by  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Republican  party  at  the  September  election. 

That  is  my  text. 

I  have  personally  known  George  C.  Perkins,  the  Repub- 
lican candidate  for  Governor,  for  about  ten  years.  His 
private  character  is  above  reproach.     His  successful  busi- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  23 1 

ness  career  is  evidence  of  administrative  ability  of  high 
order,  and  the  fact  that  he  enjoys  the  esteem  and  confi- 
dence of  all  with  whom  he  has  been  brought  in  business 
relations  is  proof  that  his  conduct  of  business  has  been  as 
honorable  as  successful. 

He  has  served  two  terms  in  the  State  Senate  with 
entire  satisfaction  to  his  constituents.  The  first  was 
during  the  administration  of  Governor  Haight.  It  is 
well  known  that  Governor  Haight  had  for  him  not  only 
the  highest  respect,  but  a  warm  feeling  of  personal  grati- 
tude, for  his  support  in  the  great  contest  over  the  question 
of  subsidies  to  railroads. 

On  the  subject  of  subsidies  let  me  say  that  the  growth 
of  the  anti-subsidy  sentiment  has  been  slower  and  more 
difficult  than  we  now  realize  in  the  hour  of  its  triumph. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  was  the  general  feeling  that 
all  we  wanted  to  usher  in  the  millennial  dawn  in  this  State 
was  railroad  communication  with  the  Atlantic,  and  that 
no  sacrifice  was  too  great  to  secure  it.  There  was  a  time 
when  counties  and  communities  were  bidding  against 
each  other  for  branches  and  connections.  It  was  only 
as  the  evils  of  the  system  of  building  railroads  by  grants 
and  subsidies  developed  themselves,  its  corruptions,  waste- 
fulness, and  extravagance  made  manifest,  that  the  peo- 
ple slowly  awoke  to  the  conviction  that  it  was  wrong; 
and  not  at  once  but  by  degrees  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  if  any  one  wants  to  own  a  railroad  he  ought  to  build 
it — and  any  community  that  furnishes  the  money  to  build 
a  road  ought  to  own  it — and  that  no  man  has  the  right 
to  vote  away  the  property  of  another  for  the  benefit  of 
a  third. 

I  appeal  to  every  man  who  believes  this  principle  to 
search  his  own  experience  and  say  if  this  is  not  a  fair 
statement  of  the  origin,  the  growth,  the  struggle,  and 
triumph  of  that  idea. 

There  are  men  to-day  who  but  yesterday  were  willing 


232  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

to  vote  away  anybody  else's  farm,  who  persuade  them- 
selves, in  the  ardor  of  conversion,  that  they  were  original, 
"  dyed  in  the  wool,"  anti-subsidy  men — that  they  have 
always  been  engaged  in  resisting  the  influence  and  curtail- 
ing the  powers  of  great  corporations,  and  "  were  stoned 
with  the  prophet^,"  just  as  Ben  Butler  may  have  imagined 
that  his  Abolitionism  antedated  Lloyd  Garrison's. 

This  contest  first  distinctly  formulated  itself  in  this  State 
in  1869.  It  divided  parties  into  wings  ;  it  alienated  friends. 
The  part  which  Governor  Haight  took  is  too  well  known 
to  need  more  than  a  reference.  It  was  distinguished  and 
honorable.  In  the  heat  of  a  political  contest,  he  singled 
out  of  his  political  opponents  George  C.  Perkins,  as  de- 
serving his  grateful  remembrance  for  his  support  on  this 
question. 

In  1 87 1  I  received  the  Republican  nomination  for 
Governor.  The  only  reason  for  my  nomination  was  my 
identification  with  the  anti-monopoly  wing  of  the  party. 
I  had  the  original,  earnest,  and  steadfast  support  of  Mr. 
Perkins.  In  1873  I  was  elected  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  after  a  contest  made  directly  before  the  people  on 
questions  of  railroad  policy.  Mr.  Perkins  supported  me 
and  voted  for  me,  under  circumstances  and  against  per- 
suasions which  would  have  moved  a  man  whose  convictions 
were  not  steadfast.     They  did  not  disturb  him. 

Of  course  I  am  not  here  to  give  Mr.  Perkins  a  certificate 
of  character.     He  does  not  need  it. 

The  charge  has  been  made  that,  if  elected,  he  will  be 
subservient  to  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company.  I 
point  to  his  record  as  a  refutation.  The  man  who  could 
maintain  the  position  he  did,  has  independence  enough  to 
fairly  meet  any  questions  which  may  arise  on  the  subject 
of  corporations.  He  is  not  made  of  the  kind  of  stuff  which 
is  subservient  to  any  one. 

With  George  C.  Perkins  for  Governor,  and  A.  L.  Rhodes 
for  Chief  Justice,  the  people  of  the  State  will  have  perfect 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  233 

assurance  that  the  Executive  and  Judicial  Departments 
will  be  presided  over  by  men  of  unsullied  purity,  and  of 
ability  equal  to  their  high  positions. 

California  is  phenomenal.  The  world  talks  about  us, 
and  our  proverbial  modesty  alone  prevents  us  from  talk- 
ing about  ourselves.  We  have  big  trees,  high  water-falls, 
and  an  occasional  earthquake.  Nature  works  here  on  a 
grand  scale,  and  in  some  degree  the  people  emulate  her 
extravagance.  Our  history  is  a  series  of  surprises  and 
paradoxes.  Perhaps  the  excitement  which  led  to  the 
settlement  of  the  country  and  filled  the  golden  age  of  '49 
and  '50  with  adventure  and  romance,  has  left  an  impression 
on  the  character  of  the  people  which  it  will  take  genera- 
tions to  remove.  I  am  afraid  we  do  not  sufficiently  practice 
that  rule  of  homely  wisdom — to  do  common  things  in  a 
common  way.  We  are  something  like  the  people  Charles 
Lamb  speaks  of,  who,  having  discovered  roast  pig  by  the 
accidental  burning  of  a  house,  went  on  burning  up  their 
houses  whenever  they  wanted  roast  pig.  We  go  from  one 
extreme  to  another,  until  excitement  seems  to  be  our  nor- 
mal condition.  It  is  feast  or  famine,  flood  or  drought, 
bonanza  or  porphyry — all  going  to  be  rich,  or  the  bottom 
dropped  out.     We  are  nothing,  if  not  unique. 

This  year  we  have  a  greater  variety  of  politics  and  more 
of  it  to  the  square  acre  than  any  community  on  the  con- 
tinent. The  abbreviations  of  party  designations  are  be- 
ginning to  try  the  capacity  of  the  alphabet,  and  to  bewilder 
the  average  memory.  It  would  seem  as  if  in  this  great 
variety  every  one  might  be  suited,  and  yet  there  never 
were  so  many  political  orphans. 

A  stranger  studying  our  institutions  and  character,  who 
should  make  up  his  mind  to  believe  that  what  we  said  of 
each  other  was  true,  would  inevitably  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  we  are  a  very  hard  lot ;  that  we  are  all  either 
agrarians,  and  Communists,  and  robbers,  and  plunderers, 
railroad  monopolists,  water  monopolists,  or  land  monopo- 


234  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

lists ;  that  each  of  us  had  sold  out  to  somebody,  and  that 
the  buyer  would  certainly  be  cheated  in  the  purchase. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  all  true.  Some  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  necessities  of  declamatory  eloquence  and 
sensational  writing.  If  it  were  true,  society  would  be  on 
the  verge  of  disintegration  or  revolution  ;  for  it  is  true  now, 
as  in  the  days  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  that  some  degree 
of  righteousness  is  necessary  to  save  the  State.  There 
must  be  the  cohesion  of  honesty  and  virtue  to  hold  the 
parts  together. 

Amid  this  perturbation  and  excitement,  this  multiplicity 
of  organization,  these  charges  and  counter-charges,  now, 
when  the  fundamental  principles  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment are  to  be  tried  in  the  crucible  of  experience,  abating 
no  jot  or  tittle  of  former  opinions  ;  holding,  as  I  ever  have, 
that  the  prosperity  and  progress  of  any  community  depend 
upon  the  condition  of  those  who  toil,  and  that  whoever 
aspires  to  the  leadership  or  statesmanship  should  study 
the  wants  and  necessities  of  labor ;  believing  that  the  first 
rule  of  political  econony,  "  in  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt 
thou  eat  thy  bread,"  is  worth  all  the  books,  treatises,  and 
systems  of  philosophy  on  that  subject  since  the  Book  of 
Genesis  was  written  ;  believing  that  the  primary  danger 
to  our  Government — to  any  popular  government — is 
greater  from  the  greed  of  the  few  than  from  the  passions 
of  the  many ;  recognizing  that  in  the  present  state  of  in- 
dustrial development  incorporations  are  necessary  for  the 
prosecution  of  great  enterprises,  but  maintaining  unalter- 
ably that  these,  being  creatures  of  the  law,  are  at  all  times 
and  under  all  circumstances  amenable  to  the  law,  and  sub- 
ject to  its  regulation  and  control,  and  that  the  franchises, 
powers,  and  privileges  they  enjoy  are  rather  in  the  nature 
of  a  public  trust  than  private  property ;  clinging  fast  to 
the  principle  that  flesh  and  blood  are  of  infinitely  more 
consequence  than  adventitious  circumstances  of  fortune, 
and  that  the  central  fact — the  vital  force  of  any  popular 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  235 

Government,  from  which  flow  its  stability,  prosperity,  and 
greatness — is  the  freedom  and  independence  of  the  indi- 
vidual citizen,  and  the  security  with  which  each  holds  and 
enjoys  the  rights  which  belong  to  him  as  a  man  ;  acknowl- 
edging no  fealty  to  party  which  is  not  subordinate  to  pri- 
vate conscience  and  public  duty  ;  holding  country  higher 
than  party,  and  justice  superior  to  both,  I  am  here  to-day 
to  declare  my  earnest  conviction  that  the  honor  and  welfare 
of  the  State  and  Nation,  and  the  object  of  all  government, 
the  security  of  each  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  rights  as  an 
individual,  will  be  best  subserved  by  the  success  of  the 
Republican  party  at  the  approaching  election. 

I  disparage  no  candidates,  attack  no  character,  impugn 
no  motives  ;  I  concede  to  others  the  sincerity  which  I 
claim  for  myself.  I  concede,  too,  that  Republicans  are 
not  all  saints  ;  that  the  party  is  a  human  instrumentality, 
that  it  contains  a  great  deal  of  human  nature,  that  ambi- 
tious men  may  seek  to  rise  through  it,  selfish  men  to 
secure  private  aims  through  it,  hypocrites  may  wear 
its  livery  ;  and  of  what  institution,  civil  or  ecclesias- 
tical, in  the  world's  history  may  not  this  be  said  ?  But 
I  do  affirm  that  it  is  a  party  of  great  ideas,  splendid 
achievements,  lofty  aims,  patriotic  impulses,  and  principles 
broad  as  humanity  itself.  I  do  affirm  that  the  honor  of 
the  nation,  the  welfare  of  the  State,  the  good  order  of 
society,  and  that  liberty  of  the  individual  protected  by 
law,  which  is  the  best  achievement  of  civilization,  are 
safer  in  its  hands  than  in  those  of  any  other,  whether  it 
be  of  yesterday,  last  year,  or  fifty  years  ago. 

For  the  purpose  of  making  a  diversion  and  raising  a 
false  issue  the  charge  is  made,  reiterated,  and  scattered 
broadcast,  that  the  success  of  the  Republican  party  in  this 
State  this  year,  means  the  dominance  of  the  Central  Pa- 
cific Railroad  Company  over  the  State  Government.  I 
deny  it.     I  make  the  denial  bold,  broad,  and  absolute. 

The  Central  Pacific  and  other  railroad  companies  have 


236  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

a  direct  and  immediate  interest  in  the  selection  of  rail- 
road commissioners.  They  have  the  same  kind  of  interest 
which  other  holders  of  property  have  in  the  choice  of  a 
State  Board  of  Equalization. 

If  the  charge  were  sincere,  if  it  were  not  made  for 
effect,  attention  would  be  directed  to  these  offices,  in 
place  of  the  unjust  attack  on  the  head  of  the  Republican 
ticket,  who,  when  elected  Governor,  will  have  less  to  do 
with  the  interest  of  the  railroad,  than  the  Assessor  of  any 
county  through  which  it  passes. 

If,  however,  Mr.  Perkins  were  a  candidate  for  Railroad 
Commissioner,  I  could  proclaim  my  belief  that  he  is  a 
just  man,  and  that  the  people  could  trust  him  to  do  right. 
I  have  known  him  winters  and  summers,  and  I  cannot  be 
shaken  in  this  belief  by  false  clamor  for  partisan  effect. 

Under  the  new  Constitution  other  corporations  may 
have  interests  to  be  effected  by  legislation,  and  by  the 
political  departments  of  the  State  Government,  but  those 
of  the  railroad  companies  have  been  segregated  and 
given  into  the  hands  of  a  distinct  Commission.  It  is  a 
bold  experiment  worthy  of  a  fair  trial,  but  it  is  not  to 
give  it  a  fair  trial  to  divert  attention  from  the  fact.  Bear 
in  mind  constantly  that  other  corporations,  other  forms  of 
aggregated  wealth,  have  all  the  interest  in  controlling  the 
Executive,  Legislative,  and  Judicial  Departments  of  the 
Government  they  have  ever  had,  and  more,  and  that  of 
the  railroads  has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum — a  vanish- 
ing point — and  answer  me  if  this  attack  on  the  head  of 
the  Republican  ticket  is  sincere  ? 

I  shall  feel  justified  in  saying  a  few  words  about  the 
"  railroad  fight."  I  have  been  there — I  know  what  it  is — 
and  the  blows  I  have  taken  in  it  have  all  been  in  front. 
It  is  not  often  I  intrude  the  "  personal  pronoun,  first 
person,  singular  number,"  but  I  claim  the  privilege  to  do 
so,  very  briefly. 

The  people  of  this  State  have  honored  me  above  my 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  2tf 

deserts.  I  shall  die  in  their  debt.  They  owe  me  nothing, 
except,  when  the  time  shall  come,  an  honorable  discharge, 
and  I  think  I  have  earned  that.  The  path  I  have  trodden 
has  not  always  been  easy,  and  the  burden  I  have  carried 
has  not  always  been  light. 

The  Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company  owe  me  nothing 
as  a  favor — nor  I  them — and  so  the  account  will  stand  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter.  If  we  ever  meet  it  will  be  on  the 
severe  ground  of  justice — and  it  is  possible  that  neither 
are  equal  to  that. 

I  dare  to  say  this  of  myself  in  my  public  career :  there 
has  never  been  a  time  when  I  would  not  have  stood  un- 
covered before  the  smith  at  his  stithy,  the  hod-carrier  at 
the  ladder,  or  the  prisoner  in  his  cell,  to  apologize  for  any 
wrong  done  by  mistake  or  inadvertence  ;  and  if  there  has 
ever  been  a  time  when  I  would  have  touched  my  hat,  or 
abated  a  hair's-breadth  of  my  manhood,  in  the  presence 
of  wealth  or  power,  for  the  sake  of  patronage  or  place,  I 
trust  its  memory  may  be  blotted  out — and  I  am  too  old 
to  change. 

The  first  phase  of  the  railroad  question  in  this  State 
was  in  regard  to  subsidies.  It  had  been  discussed  inci- 
dentally in  particular  cases  before,  but  it  was  first  formu- 
lated into  a  general  principle  over  which  the  great  public 
took  sides  in  1869 — about  the  time  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad  made  its  Eastern  connection.  Its  discussion 
was  earnest,  exhaustive,  sometimes  violent  and  angry.  It 
is  now  settled.  So  well  settled,  it  is  scarcely  referred  to. 
To-day  it  is  obsolete — as  historical  as  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  The  experience  was  not  peculiar  to  this 
State.  All  through  the  Western  and  Southwestern  States 
bankrupt  towns  and  tax-ridden  communities  bear  witness 
to  the  fact  that  the  habit  of  voting  subsidies  was  once  as 
popular  as  it  is  now  odious.  It  has  been  a  good  deal  like 
the  business  of  dealing  in  stocks.  When  the  market  is 
going  up,  nothing  is  so  lovely  or  of  such  good  report ; 


238  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

when  it  turns,  it  becomes  of  doubtful  propriety  ;  as  it 
goes  down,  its  morality  becomes  more  and  more  ques- 
tionable ;  when  it  is  flat — when  the  tide  is  out  and  the 
mud  shoals  of  bankruptcy  are  laid  bare — it  is  positively 
wicked — total  depravity. 

Questions  in  relation  to  corporations,  the  nature  of  their 
franchises,  the  relations  they  sustain  to  the  public  when 
their  general  business  is  for  a  public  use,  and  how  far  such 
business  can  be  regulated  by  law,  are  not  recent.  Under 
the  system  formerly  in  vogue  in  this  country,  of  granting 
special  charters,  incorporated  companies  often  obtained 
special  privileges  and  exemptions  which,  in  the  growth 
and  changes  of  society,  became  onerous  and  oppressive. 
The  phrase  "  chartered  rights,"  which  was  invoked  for 
their  protection,  became  almost  as  odious  as  the  "  divine 
rights  of  kings."  The  courts,  following  the  decision  in  the 
Dartmouth  case,  held  that  charters,  or  acts  of  incorpora- 
tion, were  in  the  nature  of  a  contract,  and  could  not  be 
changed  by  law.  In  order  to  avoid  this  doctrine — or 
rather  to  remedy  the  evils  which  grew  out  of  it, — nearly 
all  the  States  have  amended  their  Constitutions,  so  that 
incorporations  other  than  municipal  can  only  be  organized 
under  general  laws,  which  can  be  altered,  amended,  or 
repealed  like  other  acts  of  legislation.  This  change,  which 
seems  to  us  so  benign  and  necessary,  was  not  accom- 
plished without  long  and  ardent  discussion.  Companies 
whose  charters  were  about  to  expire  had  a  strong  interest 
in  resisting  it — and  there  were  many  who  sincerely  believed 
that  in  every  community  there  were  some  interests  that 
needed  peculiar  protection,  and  certain  men  should  be  a 
special  providence  over  them,  whose  rights  should  be 
guarded  by  unusual  sanctions,  hedged  in  by  unchange- 
able law. 

Even  after  these  changes  were  made,  it  was  strongly 
contended  that  the  right  to  alter,  amend,  or  repeal  was 
modified  and  restricted.     In  this  State  it  was  ably  insisted 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  239 

that  under  this  power  the  State  Legislature  had  no  right 
to  change  the  maximum  of  tolls  on  railroads  which  had 
been  fixed  when  the  companies  were  organized.  I  have 
heard  a  distinguished  Senator  of  the  United  States  argue 
that  the  franchise  of  a  corporation  could  not  be  changed, 
though  the  act  conferring  reserved  the  right  to  alter, 
amend,  or  repeal. 

This  point  has  been  settled.  Corporations  are  not 
superior  to  the  law  which  creates  them,  and  reserves  the 
right  to  change.  They  are  not  Frankensteins,  to  enslave 
their  inventor  and  creator. 

In  relation  to  railroads,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  announced  the  final  and  conclusive  doctrine  less 
than  three  years  ago  : 

' '  Railroad  companies  are  carriers  for  hire.  They  are  incorporated  as 
such,  and  given  extraordinary  powers  in  order  that  they  may  the  better 
serve  the  public  in  that  capacity.  They  are,  therefore,  engaged  in  a  public 
employment,  and  subject  to  legislative  control  as  to  their  rates  of  fare  and 
freight,  unless  protected  by  their  charters." 

Contemporaneously  with  that  was  the  decision  in  what 
is  known  as  the  "  Elevator  case,"  where  an  individual,  not 
a  corporation,  was  the  party  in  interest,  and  in  which  the 
general  principle  was  more  broadly  stated : 

"  Property  does  become  clothed  with  a  public  interest  when  used  in  a 
manner  to  make  it  of  public  consequence,  affect  the  community  at  large. 
When,  therefore,  one  devotes  his  property  to  a  use  in  which  the  public  has 
an  interest,  he,  in  effect,  grants  to  the  public  an  interest  in  that  use,  and 
must  submit  to  be  controlled  by  the  public  for  the  common  good  to  the 
extent  of  the  interest  he  has  thus  created." 


That  is,  railroads  are  just  as  subject  to  legislative  con- 
trol as  to  their  rates  of  charges  as  hackney  coaches,  turn- 
pikes, ferries,  and  bridges.  So  are  water-  and  gas-companies  ; 
so  is  the  business  of  any  man,  in  so  far  as  he  devotes  his 
property  to  a  use  in  which  the  public  has  an  interest.    The 


240  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

principle  is  the  same.  It  is  only  more  important  in  its 
application  to  railroads  because  their  business  is  larger 
and  affects  a  greater  variety  of  interests. 

These  questions  were  authoritatively  settled  less  than 
three  years  ago.  Before  that  they  were  subjects  of  dis- 
pute— there  was  scope  for  argument,  cause  for  agitation, 
and  room  for  independent  organization.  Now  they  are 
not  only  settled,  but  acquiesced  in.  It  only  remains  to 
exercise  the  acknowledged  power.  The  new  Constitution, 
leaving  other  corporations  and  other  individuals  who  de- 
vote their  property  to  a  use  in  which  the  public  has  an 
interest  to  legislative  control,  has  created  a  Commission 
to  regulate  freights  and  fares  on  railroads. 

The  people  of  the  State  have  a  right  to  expect  and 
demand  that  the  rates  of  freights  and  fares  shall  be  just 
and  reasonable.  They  desire  nothing  in  anger  or  by  way 
of  punishment. 

They  will  not  tolerate  discriminations  in  favor  or  against 
persons  or  places.  They  want  rights,  not  favors — equal 
rights  under  the  law.  The  power  to  discriminate  is  too 
great  and  dangerous  to  be  confided  to  the  arbitrary  exer- 
cise of  any  one.  They  recognize  that  classifications  of 
freight  are  necessary,  but  they  deny  that  these  should  be 
changed  arbitrarily  with  a  view  to  increase  the  railroads' 
profit.  They  deny  the  right  of  a  railroad  company  to 
advance  the  freight  of  any  article  when  its  market  price 
advances,  and  thus  make  themselves  partners  with  pro- 
ducers and  manufacturers. 

These  things,  as  I  have  said,  are  to  be  accomplished  not 
in  anger,  or  passion,  or  revenge,  but  in  a  spirit  of  fairness 
and  justice,  and  under  the  majesty  of  the  law.  They  are 
no  longer  topics  for  agitation  and  partisan  appeal,  but  for 
judicial  consideration  and  decision.  To  ask  more  than 
this  is  to  deserve  less. 

In  all  the  phases  of  the  railroad  question  in  this  State 
— and    it  has   had    many — Mr.  Perkins   has   been    fairly 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  24 1 

abreast  with  the  best  public  opinion,  and  far,  far  in  ad- 
vance of  many  who  now  denounce  him.  It  has  ever  been 
the  part  of  new  converts  to  attempt  to  atone  for  loss  of 
time  by  a  display  of  zeal,  and  to  substitute  violence  for 
faith. 

In  the  choice  of  a  friend,  a  business  agent,  or  a  pub- 
lic officer,  which  do  you  prefer,  character  or  cast-iron 
pledges  ? 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  apologize  for  devoting  so  much 
time  to  this  subject.  If  so,  the  place  it  holds  in  public 
attention  must  be  my  apology.  I  regard  the  issue  as  fac- 
titious. It  is  unfortunate,  as  it  serves  to  divert  the  public 
from  the  consideration  of  other  subjects  of  vital  impor- 
tance. Perhaps  this  is  the  purpose  of  its  introduction.  In 
this  city  your  water-rates  are  more  burdensome  than  rail- 
road tariffs,  and  you  are  in  more  danger  from  the  schemes 
of  water-companies  than  of  railroad  corporations. 

The  effect  of  large  landholdings  in  this  State  demands 
patient,  thoughtful,  and  dispassionate  consideration.  The 
evil  is  admitted,  and  some  remedy  should  be  earnestly 
sought,  which,  without  doing  violence  to  rights  acquired 
under  existing  laws,  should  prevent  it  from  increasing  and 
entailing  itself  upon  the  future.  The  good  order  and 
orderly  progress  of  society,  the  perpetuity  of  republican 
institutions  in  spirit,  as  well  as  form,  depend  more  on  an 
equitable  division  of  lands  than  upon  anything  else.  If 
every  man  in  this  country  could  live  in  his  own  house, 
cultivate  his  own  lands,  we  should  have  a  bond  of  fate  for 
security  and  progress,  wise  laws,  and  good  government. 

I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  saying  to  our  friends  in  the 
East  that  the  question  of  vital  and  paramount  interest  to 
us  to-day  was  that  of  Chinese  immigration  ;  that  its  pres- 
ent importance  was  only  exceeded  by  the  magnitude  of 
its  possible  results ;  and  that  in  the  not  distant  future  the 
practical  issue  would  have  to  be  met  as  to  whether  the 

civilization  of  this  coast,  its  society,  morals,  and  industries 
16 


242  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

should  be  of  the  American  or  Asiatic  type.  Am  I  now  to 
be  forced  to  admit  that  this  question  has  been  dwarfed, 
and  is  as  little  considered  as  though  it  were  "  relegated  to 
the  limbo  of  forgotten  things  "  ? 

Whatever  may  be  the  result  of  this  contest,  the  great 
contest  remains  between  the  Republican  and  Democratic 
parties.  The  Democrats  see  fit  to  run  a  headless  ticket 
this  year,  trusting  to  Republican  votes  to  put  a  head  on 
it.     I  trust  they  will — but  not  just  in  that  way. 

These  parties  are  national  and  historical.  They  are 
parties  of  ideas — forces  in  human  affairs.  Whatever  local 
divisions  and  dissensions  there  may  be,  these  two  will  re- 
main in  the  struggle  for  control  and  direction.  That  the 
contest  next  year  for  the  election  of  a  President  and  the 
control  of  Congress  will  be  doubtful,  it  would  be  useless 
to  deny.  That  every  State  election  this  year,  whether  in 
Maine,  Ohio,  New  York,  or  California,  is  a  part  of  that 
contest,  it  is  idle  to  conceal. 

The  Republicans  of  California  stand  in  line  with  their 
brethren  of  the  Eastern  States,  and  purpose  to  stand  or 
fall  with  them. 

Since  the  fourth  of  last  March,  for  the  first  time  in 
seventeen  years,  the  Democratic  party  has  had  a  majority 
in  both  houses  of  Congress.  It  has  been  bold  and  aggres- 
sive. It  is  announced  that  the  verdict  of  history  is  to  be 
reversed,  that  the  principle  of  State  sovereignty,  for  which 
the  Rebellion  fought,  is  to  be  vindicated,  and  that  its  only 
crime  was  its  failure.  The  measures  of  the  Republican 
party  during  the  war,  and  during  the  still  more  difficult 
period  of  reconstruction,  are  impeached,  their  authors 
maligned,  and  the  intention  announced  of  repealing  them 
all.  The  Democrats  of  the  South  claim  that  if  there  were 
any  virtue  in  putting  down  the  Rebellion  and  saving  the 
Union,  it  belongs  to  the  Democratic  party  of  the  North, 
and  the  Democrats  of  the  North  concede,  that  hereafter 
the  principles  on  which  the  Rebellion  justified  itself  are  to 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  243 

be  recognized  as  the  true  interpretation  of  the  Govern- 
ment. A  distinguished  Democratic  Senator  from  a  New 
England  State  argued  in  the  Senate,  with  emphasis  and 
power,  that  the  war  had  settled  nothing.  Then  nullifica- 
tion and  secession  are  as  open  questions  as  when  Calhoun 
argued  for  them  or  the  Confederacy  fought  for  them  ! 
Examine  the  debates  on  the  Democratic  side  at  the  extra 
session  of  Congress.  You  will  find  one  principle  under- 
lying them  all :  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
has  only  jurisdiction  in  any  State  by  the  State's  consent. 
It  was  contended  by  all  the  Democratic  speakers  that 
Congress  had  no  power  to  pass  laws  to  secure  a  fair  elec- 
tion of  members  of  Congress. 

It  was  contended,  without  dispute  on  the  Democratic 
side,  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  had  no  right 
to  use  the  army  to  enforce  Federal  laws  in  any  State,  ex- 
cept on  the  demand  of  the  Governor  or  Legislature  of  such 
State.  That  goes  a  bow-shot  farther  than  Buchanan's 
celebrated  sentence  in  regard  to  the  coercion  of  States 
— admit  it  and  you  make  secession  as  easy  as  a  town 
muster. 

I  think  these  things  ought  to  be  a  bugle  call  to  summon 
every  Republican  into  line.  Not  only  the  future  policy  of 
the  Government  is  at  issue,  but  the  memories  of  a  past, 
made  sacred  by  sacrifice,  are  at  stake.  In  the  tremendous 
conflict  that  divided  the  Nation,  heroism  may  have  been 
equal,  sincerity  may  have  been  equal,  but  there  was  a  right 
and  a  wrong — and  they  were  too  widely  divided  for  the 
wrong  to  be  reinstated  in  power,  before  the  generation 
which  was  scarred  by  the  battle  has  passed  away. 

The  achievements  of  the  Republican  party  make  a  great 
chapter  in  history — one  of  the  grandest  in  the  book  of 
time.  Was  ever  a  party  confronted  with  so  many  diffi- 
culties which  made  so  few  mistakes  ?  It  is  to-day  a  moral 
power  and  patriotic  force,  which  humanity  cannot  spare. 

It  has  been  charged — and  that  was  the  animus  of  most 


244  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

of  the  Democratic  speeches  at  the  late  session  of  Congress 
— that  the  Republican  party  was  in  favor  of  military  con- 
trol of  elections,  and  the  interference  of  the  army  in  civil 
affairs.  The  charge  is  as  ridiculous  as  false — an  army  of 
less  than  twenty-five  thousand,  two  thirds  of  it  guarding 
an  Indian  frontier,  to  influence  or  control  forty-five  mil- 
lions of  people  !  There  was  a  time  when  the  Republican 
party  administering  this  Government  controlled  an  armed 
power.  When  the  Rebellion  was  crushed,  there  were  more 
than  a  million  of  Union  soldiers  in  arms,  inured  to  danger 
and  hardship,  accustomed  to  discipline,  proud  of  their 
leaders,  flushed  with  victory.  There  was  a  time  when 
power  could  have  been  perpetuated  by  force.  At  a  breath 
of  law  this  armed  host,  invincible  to  any  power  on  earth, 
melted  into  civil  life,  and  became  indistinguishable  in  the 
peaceful  pursuits  of  industry.  History  will  point  to  that 
as  the  supreme  triumph  of  the  time.  It  is  an  abnegation 
of  power  which  has  no  parallel  in  human  affairs. 

It  has  been  charged  (the  charge  is  as  old  as  the  party 
itself)  that  the  Republican  party  was  hostile  to  State 
rights  and  local  government.  At  the  close  of  the  war, 
eleven  States  were  at  its  feet.  It  could  have  wiped 
out  their  boundaries,  changed  their  names,  made  them 
military  dependencies.  Its  chief  care  was  to  rehabitate 
them,  and  restore  them  to  proper  relations  to  the  Federal 
Union. 

It  would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not  serious,  to  watch  the 
average  close  construction  Democrat  of  to-day,  who  be- 
lieves the  war  has  settled  nothing,  and  that  nothing  has 
been  settled  since  the  Resolutions  of  '98,  parsing  through 
the  Federal  Constitution  to  show  by  copulatives  and  dis- 
junctives just  where  the  boundary  line  is  between  State 
and  National  sovereignty,  and  precisely  how  the  General 
Government  exists  by  sufferance  of  the  States. 

It  is  the  satire  of  the  time,  and  of  all  time,  to  see  men 
claiming  the  especial  care  of  the  letter  of  the  Constitution 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  245 

to-day,  who  but  yesterday  were  striving  to  rend  the 
instrument  to  pieces  and  scatter  it  to  the  winds. 

Next  year  there  will  be  a  tremendous  conflict  between 
these  two  great  forces,  moral  and  political,  the  Republican 
and  Democratic  parties.  This  year  there  is  a  marshalling 
of  the  forces.  Can  California  afford  to  be  absent  from 
the  Republican  line? 

If  I  have  not  convinced  you,  I  at  least  am  convinced 
that  the  best  interests  of  the  State  and  Nation,  the  good 
order  of  society,  and  its  orderly  advancement,  the  protec- 
tion of  each  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  own,  and  the  security 
of  equal  rights  under  the  law,  will  be  subserved  by  the 
success  of  the  Republican  party  at  the  September  election. 

SPEECH  ON   NATIONAL  ISSUES. 

DELIVERED  AT   SAN   FRANCISCO,   SEPTEMBER   II,    l880. 

The  nomination  of  General  Hancock  for  President,  by 
the  Democratic  party,  means  one  of  two  things — conver- 
sion or  hypocrisy — a  change  of  heart,  or  an  attempt  to 
deceive.  If  it  be  the  first — if  this  be  the  evidence  of  a 
sincere  abandonment  of  old  positions,  what  reason  can 
that  party  give  for  its  further  existence  ?  Is  it  necessary 
to  call  the  Democratic  party  into  power  to  administer  the 
government  on  Republican  principles  ?  The  effrontery  of 
a  claim  like  this  would  be  sublime  if  it  were  not  ridicu- 
lous. 

I  have  heard  an  illustration  which  seems  to  me  apt :  It 
is  as  if  the  prodigal  son,  when  he  had  returned  to  his 
father's  house,  and  eaten  the  fatted  calf,  should  turn  the 
old  gentleman  out  of  doors,  demand  a  deed  to  the  farm, 
insist  that  nothing  less  would  reconcile  him  and  make  him 
forget  the  past  unpleasantness  ! 

I  have  been  trying  to  find  an  historical  parallel.  I  have 
failed.     History  is  often  absurd — but  never,  I  think,  so 


246  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

absurd  as  that.  I  can  imagine  one  :  During  the  war  of 
the  American  Revolution  there  was  a  large  number  of 
men  in  this  country  who  were  sincerely  opposed  to  the 
independence  of  the  United  States.  In  some  sections 
they  were  in  a  majority.  They  were  called  Tories,  from 
their  sympathy  with  the  then  governing  party  in  Great 
Britain.  They  held  themselves  to  be  subjects  of  George 
III.,  just  as  much  as  the  great  body  of  the  people  in  the 
Southern  States  from  '61  to  '65  held  themselves  citizens 
of  the  Confederacy.  They  resisted  drafts,  impeded  the 
execution  of  the  laws,  fought  with  the  red-coats,  and 
made  the  Revolution  a  civil  war  —a  war  that  divided  neigh- 
bors and  families.  Suppose  the  Tories  had  maintained  a 
distinct  political  organization  after  the  war  closed,  and 
had  met  in  convention,  resolved  that  they  stood  by  their 
principles,  were  proud  of  their  traditions,  and  that  they 
were  of  right  entitled  to  the  possession  and  control  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  Suppose  they  had 
nominated  for  President,  General  Gates,  a  soldier  by  pro- 
fession, distinguished  for  his  services  in  the  patriot  army, 
and  had  said,  "  accept  this  as  an  olive  branch — we  admit 
the  United  States  are  independent — give  us  the  control 
of  the  government  to  soothe  our  feelings  ;  do  it,  or  we 
shall  be  mad  so  long  as  we  live,  and  the  longer  we  live  the 
madder  we  '11  get — and  you  shall  be  responsible  for  the 
animosities  which  have  grown  out  of  the  war." 

Would  that  proposition  be  more  absurd,  preposterous, 
than  that  of  the  Democratic  party  to-day  ? 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  Republican  party  there  would 
to-day  have  been  no  Government  of  the  United  States  to 
administer.  I  am  not  speaking  of  men,  but  of  political 
organizations.  If  there  be  any  way  in  which  to  adminis- 
ter a  free  government  except  through  political  parties,  it 
has  not  yet  been  discovered.  For  the  past  twenty  years 
the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties  have  stood  in 
bold,  defiant,  aggressive  opposition.     However  members 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  247 

of  these  parties  may  agree  or  disagree  upon  measures  of 
temporary  policy,  the  difference  between  the  parties  as 
political  organizations,  in  their  scope,  tendency,  spirit,  is 
essential,  radical,  fundamental.  I  repeat,  and  enlarge  the 
statement,  that  we  have  a  Government  of  the  United 
States  of  America ;  that  we  have  a  great  republic — the 
first  great  republic  in  history  where  no  man  calls  another 
master — is  due,  under  Providence,  to  that  organization 
which  will  be  known  and  honored  in  history  forever  as  the 
Republican  party. 

I  have  heard  the  statement  made,  and  its  truth  con- 
ceded by  men  with  whom  I  politically  affiliate,  and  for 
whom  I  have  the  highest  respect,  that  no  party  was  enti- 
tled to  the  credit  of  putting  down  the  Rebellion  ;  that  it 
was  the  work  of  the  American  people.  If  this  means  that 
it  was  the  work  of  the  American  people  irrespective  of 
party  organization,  I  deny  it.  If  there  had  been  no 
Democratic  party,  the  Rebellion  would  not  have  lasted 
a  season,  if  it  had  ever  arisen.  If  no  Republican  party 
had  stood  behind  Lincoln,  the  rebels  would  have  dictated 
terms  at  Washington,  without  a  Bull  Run. 

Mere  physical  courage  is  an  attribute  which  we  share 
with  the  animals.  If  the  war  had  been  a  mere  exhibition 
of  brute  force,  a  trial  of  strength,  a  field  for  the  display 
of  military  skill,  it  would  have  been  the  stupendous 
crime  of  history.  It  was  only  as  a  part  of  the  conflict  of 
ideas  necessary  to  the  salvation  of  the  Republic,  that  it  is 
redeemed  from  murder,  to  sacrifice,  and  takes  its  place  in 
heroic  annals.  From  the  humblest  soldier  who  fell  in 
battle  to  the  martyred  Lincoln,  it  was  the  awful  issues  at 
stake ;  the  tremendous  interests  imperilled  ;  the  great 
ideas  involved,  that  sanctified  it  all.  These  ideas,  in- 
terests, issues,  were  formulated,  championed,  and  de- 
fended by  the  Republican  party. 

Political  parties  are  not  mere  voluntary  associations. 
They  cannot  be  made  to  order.    If  they  have  any  vitality 


248  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

they  organize  themselves,  and  become  great  forces  in 
human  affairs.  To  ascertain  the  governing  ideas  of  a 
political  party  we  should  not  go  to  a  particular  declara- 
tion made  at  a  particular  time,  for  a  particular  purpose. 
That  might  be  a  passing  qualm  of  conscience,  or,  per- 
chance, a  bid  for  office.  We  must  examine  its  history. 
Especially  if  there  be  such,  should  we  see  how  it  has  met 
great  emergencies,  that  try  the  inmost  heart  and  test  the 
utmost  strength.  Has  it  arisen  to  or  fallen  short  of  the 
height  of  great  occasions,  when  great  interests  were  at 
stake,  and  the  rights  which  underlie  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment imperilled  ? 

There  may  come  a  time  to  parties — as  there  often  does 
to  men — a  time  of  trial,  when  the  very  soul  stands  re- 
vealed, naked  in  the  burning  light  of  day.  After  that 
professions  and  hypocrisy  are  useless  to  conceal.  Nothing 
but  the  grave  can  cover  infirmity. 

The  Democratic  party  has  passed  such  an  ordeal,  and 
the  highest  boon  it  can  rightfully  ask  is  the  charity  of 
oblivion.  The  only  mercy  it  ought  to  expect  is  forget- 
fulness. 

I  choose  in  this  address  to  discuss  historical  facts, 
essential  differences,  central  principles.  There  are  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  among  Republicans  as  there  are 
among  Democrats,  on  questions  of  revenue  and  currency, 
of  tariff,  greenbacks,  gold  and  silver.  Many  of  these  will 
be  gradually  settled  by  experience.  That  these  are 
questions  of  comparatively  trivial  importance  is  due  to  the 
wise,  patriotic,  and  successful  administration  of  the  Re- 
publican party. 

We  are  a  Nation  50,000,000  strong.  That  we  shall 
remain  a  Nation,  one  undivided,  indivisible,  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  No  Englishman  doubts  there  will  always  be 
an  England  for  the  English  ;  no  German  doubts  there  will 
always  be  a  Germany  for  the  Germans  ;  there  will  always 
be  a  France  for  the  French.      That  there  will  always  be 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  249 

an  America  for  Americans — that  this  fact  has  been  ac- 
complished, established — is  due  to  the  Republican  party. 
What  the  government  of  the  country  shall  be — how  it 
shall  be  administered — is  a  question  of  only  less  impor- 
tance than  its  continued  existence. 

The  problems  of  law,  administration,  and  policy  which 
are  constantly  arising  in  a  government  like  ours,  are  com- 
plicated and  difficult.  Neither  you  nor  I,  nor  any  one 
else,  can  understand  them  all  in  detail.  What  we  are  re- 
quired to  understand  is  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  to  be 
met  and  solved. 

No  disinterested  man,  if  there  be  such,  will  seriously  con- 
tend that  the  Government  would  be  better  administered 
under  Democratic  than  under  Republican  control ;  that 
its  dealings  with  foreign  nations  would  be  more  just  and 
enlightened  ;  that  its  credit  would  be  better  maintained  ; 
that  its  debt  would  be  more  rapidly  paid  ;  that  it  would 
be  better  protected  from  the  vague,  vast,  portentous 
mass  of  Southern  war  claims  which  hang  over  it  like  a 
cloud.  Surely  no  one  will  claim,  whether  disinterested 
or  not,  that  the  spirit  of  the  Democratic  party  is  more  in 
harmony  with  social  order,  and  that  orderly  progress  of 
society  which  comes  of  evolution,  not  revolution,  than  the 
Republican.  No  one,  however  prejudiced,  will  claim  that 
those  personal  rights  which  all  government  is  ordained  to 
protect — free  speech,  equality  before  the  law,  the  security 
of  each  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  own — are  safer  under 
Democratic  than  Republican  control.  No  one,  whatever 
his  condition  may  be,  will  dare  to  assert  that  the  American 
idea  of  government,  personal  liberty,  and  national  union, 
centre  and  circumference,  is  safer  under  Democratic  than 
Republican  control. 

The  splendid  achievements  of  the  Republican  party 
since  the  close  of  the  war  will  be  only  less  famous  in 
history  than  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion. 

Pause  for  a  moment !     Go  back  in  your  memories  to  the 


250  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

sad,  bitter  day  when  the  joy  of  victory  was  turned  to 
tears,  and  the  sweet  dawn  of  peace  was  clouded  by  the 
death  of  Lincoln. 

Did  ever  a  nation  confront  graver  problems,  more  com- 
plicated difficulties,  more  serious  dangers,  than  ours  did 
then? 

The  questions  our  fathers  met  in  the  establishment  of  a 
government,  after  the  achievement  of  independence,  were 
far  less  difficult.  The  war  of  the  Revolution,  itself,  welded 
the  people  into  one ;  the  war  of  the  Rebellion  dissevered 
them.  The  governments  of  eleven  States  had  been 
destroyed,  and  the  people  of  these  States  were  animated 
with  a  hatred  for  the  Union,  which  was  intensified  by  de- 
feat. The  actual  poverty  of  the  South  was  scarcely  less 
to  be  deplored  than  the  fictitious,  inflated,  speculative 
prosperity  of  the  North  was  to  be  feared  in  its  ultimate 
effect. 

Four  million  slaves,  who  had  inherited  slavery  with  its 
submissions  and  weakness  from  immemorial  generations, 
had  just  been  emancipated,  and  were  to  live  side  by  side 
with  their  late  masters,  who  regarded  their  emancipation 
as  an  act  of  despotic  power.  A  million  of  men  under 
arms,  flushed  with  victory,  proud  of  their  leaders,  were  to 
be  disbanded  and  absorbed  in  pursuits  of  civil  life.  A  cur- 
rency fluctuating  from  day  to  day,  demoralized  business 
into  speculation  or  degraded  into  gambling.  A  debt  so 
vast  it  could  scarcely  be  estimated,  and  behind  it  a  mass 
of  claims  too  vague  and  vast  for  definition.  A  credit 
prostrated  until  it  was  a  byword  and  a  reproach. 

Confronting  these  questions,  between  order  and  anarchy, 
civil  government  and  military  rule,  payment  and  repudia- 
tion, with  nameless  and  countless  complications  of  settle- 
ment, in  the  moment  of  supreme  civil  peril,  our  chosen 
leader,  whose  character  exalted  to  the  highest  plain  of 
humanity,  made  him  worthy  to  wear  the  crown  of  martyr- 
dom, whose  wisdom  and  purity,  and  the  great  love  the 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  25 1 

people  bore  him,  were  pledges  of  the  Nation's  safety,  was 
stricken  down,  and  the  hearts  of  the  people  were  stirred 
by  wild  thoughts  of  vengeance.  The  sea  of  trouble  was 
tempest-tost  by  passion. 

In  war,  all  questions  are  subordinated  to  success — all 
measures  look  to  one  end — all  appeals  are  to  one  senti- 
ment. War  over,  the  intensity  of  excitement  relaxed,  the 
stimulus  of  heroic  achievements  and  tangible  resistance 
withdrawn,  difficulties  of  administration  begin.  These  had 
never  been  more  manifold  and  complicated  than  with  us. 
For  never  had  civil  war  been  waged  over  so  wide  a  coun- 
try, involved  greater  loss  of  life  and  property,  enlisted 
deeper  passions,  or  been  fraught  with  graver  interests. 

Go  back  again  to  the  bitter  day  when  the  lightning 
flashed  over  the  civilized  world  the  saddest  tidings  the 
wires  have  ever  borne — that  Lincoln  was  dead, — what  a 
weary  waste  of  difficulty  lay  before  the  Republic  !  What 
a  dark  cloud  of  danger  overhung  it !  An  army  in  hand 
which  in  any  other  country  an  ambitious  leader  might  use 
to  subvert  civil  authority ;  a  united  Government  to  be 
established  over  a  discordant  people  on  the  basis  of  justice 
to  each ;  freedom  to  be  secured  to  4,000,000  emancipated 
slaves  in  a  hostile  community.  This  to  be  done  with  a 
credit  prostrated  by  unexampled  expenditures,  and  under 
a  load  of  incalculable  debt. 

Contrast  then  with  now ;  that  with  this ;  not  sixteen 
years  have  gone ;  not  half  a  generation  ;  our  credit  is  the 
highest  in  the  world  ;  our  debt  liquidated  until  it  is  easily 
in  hand,  and  substantially  all  held  at  home ;  the  nation 
stands  in  the  foremost  rank  of  time,  and  an  indissoluble 
union  has  been  sealed  with  universal  freedom. 

To  assert  that  the  party  has  made  no  mistakes,  would 
be  to  claim  that  it  is  more  than  human.  Measures  are 
often  experimental — sometimes  a  choice  of  evils.  A  party 
must  be  judged  by  the  result  of  its  policy.  To  say  that 
the  Democratic  party  would  have  improved  on  this  mag- 


252  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

nificent  result,  the  grandest  in  civil  history,  is  to  insult 
common-sense,  and  libel  common  honesty.  It  has  stood 
as  a  party  of  obstruction.  It  has  stood  as  a  prophet  of 
evil,  intent  on  making  its  prejudices  good.  It  has  pro- 
posed no  great  measure ;  it  has  championed  no  great 
idea ;  it  has  uttered  no  broad  catholic  truth.  Whatevei 
has  been  achieved  for  human  progress,  national  stability, 
personal  freedom,  has  been  accomplished  in  its  despite. 
It  is  even  driven  to  the  necessity  of  making  a  merit  of 
acquiescing  in  what  it  was  powerless  to  prevent,  and  is 
impotent  to  reverse.  Twelve  years  ago  it  denounced  the 
Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  of 
the  Constitution  as  revolutionary  and  void.  To-day  it 
concedes  they  are  a  part  of  the  organic  law.  It  has  taken 
the  party  twelve  years  to  discover  what  all  the  world 
knew.  General  Hancock,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  says 
these  amendments  must  be  maintained.  I  read  that  part 
of  his  letter  with  delight,  and  half  expected  to  find  the 
logical  sequence — that  he  would  advise  everybody  to 
support  Garfield,  who  had  assisted  in  their  adoption. 

The  earnest,  sincere  acceptance  by  the  Democratic  party 
of  these  amendments,  crystallized  results  of  the  war,  would 
be  a  triumph  for  the  Republican  party,  scarcely  less  than 
its  highest  achievement.  But  there  is  a  difference  betwen 
lip-service  and  heart-service ;  between  creed  and  faith ; 
between  the  letter  which  killeth  and  the  spirit  which 
maketh  alive.  There  is  a  difference  between  accepting  a 
situation  as  a  hard  necessity,  and  embracing  it  as  a  joyful 
opportunity.  There  is  a  difference  in  the  spirit  which 
says,  "  The  lines  are  hard,  but  it  is  so  written.  I  acquiesce 
in  the  inevitable,"  and  that  which  acclaims,  "  Before  ever 
the  world  was  it  was  true ;  though  the  foundations  of  the 
world  should  pass  away,  it  will  remain  true ;  therefore,  it 
is  so  written." 

These  represent  principles  which  are  the  trophies  of  the 
Republican  party.     It  achieved  them  in  tribulation  and 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  2$$ 

trial.  It  clung  to  them  when  it  was  treading  the  wine- 
press ;  it  bore  them  amid  the  fires  of  battle  ;  in  the  dark- 
ness of  defeat  it  would  not  part  with  them  ;  washed  in  the 
blood  of  the  faithful  it  flung  them  to  the  broad  light  in 
the  triumphant  glory  of  victory.  Come  weal  or  come 
woe,  come  joy  or  sorrow,  they  are  a  part  of  its  history 
forever. 

I  desire  to  adhere  to  my  text.  It  may  be  late  to  state 
it  in  the  middle  of  the  discourse,  but  you  will  pardon  the 
omission  ;  it  is,  that  a  free  government  can  only  be  ad- 
ministered through  party  organization ;  that  political 
parties  are  forces  which  must  be  judged  by  their  ten- 
dency, direction,  results.  And  that  the  triumph  of  ideas, 
the  moral  triumph  in  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  which 
redeem  the  war  from  butchery  and  emblazon  it  among 
the  constellations  of  history :  that  the  unity,  credit,  and 
general  prosperity  which  in  the  face  of  unexampled  diffi- 
culties the  country  has  attained,  are  due,  not  to  any 
unorganized,  vague  sentiment  diffused  at  large,  but  to  the 
powerful  organization  of  that  sentiment  in  the  Republican 
party.  That  all  these  achievements  have  been  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  Democratic  party — that  the  antagonism  be- 
tween the  parties  still  exists,  by  reason  of  the  antagonism 
of  spirit,  purpose,  and  tradition,  and  will  exist  so  long  as 
both  shall  live.  That  they  represent  the  ideas  of  diverse 
civilizations — the  one  the  relic  of  the  social  aristocracy 
and  African  slavery  of  the  South,  the  other  the  product 
of  the  universal  freedom  and  local  democratic  institutions 
of  the  North, — and  if  either  is  right  the  other  is  so  fatally 
wrong  it  has  forfeited  its  right  to  a  place  in  history. 

If  I  must  refer  to  facts  which  are  but  too  familiar,  it  is 
because  of  the  difficulty  of  demonstrating  a  proposition 
which  ought  to  be  evident  from  its  statement. 

Again  I  ask  you  to  revert  to  one  of  the  great  crises  of 
our  history.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  on  the  4th  of 
March,  1861.     The  Confederate  Government  was  already 


254  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

organized ;  its  Constitution  had  been  agreed  upon  ;  its 
President  selected.  It  had  appointed  diplomatic  agents 
to  treat  with  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 
General  Twiggs,  commanding  the  Department  of  Texas, 
had  turned  over  his  entire  army,  with  posts,  fortifications, 
arms,  and  munitions,  depriving  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  of  half  its  military  force,  and  of  the  control 
of  Texas,  with  the  Mexican  frontier.  Forts,  arsenals, 
and  public  property  had  been  seized,  not  only  within  the 
limits  of  the  seven  States  which  had  passed  ordinances  of 
secession,  but  within  several  which  had  not.  It  was  evi- 
dent to  the  dullest  understanding  that  one  of  two  calami- 
ties was  imminent — either  a  dissolution,  which  would  be 
a  national  humiliation  and  disgrace,  or  war.  Both  could 
only  be  averted  in  one  way.  If  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  North  had  made  one  authoritative  declaration,  that 
the  laws  of  the  United  States  must  be  enforced  through- 
out all  the  land,  that  the  flag  should  never  recede  an  inch 
on  American  soil,  the  Union  might  have  been  restored 
with  peace. 

The  Senate  of  the  United  States  was  in  session  for 
twenty-five  days  while  the  fate  of  the  nation  hung  in 
balance.  Horace  Greeley  says :  "  No  Democrat  in  the 
Senate,  and  no  organ  of  Democratic  opinion  out  of  the 
Senate  proffered  an  assurance  or  an  exhortation  to  the 
President,  tending  to  encourage  and  support  him  in  up- 
holding the  integrity  and  supporting  the  laws  of  the 
Union." 

The  opportunity  went  by.  The  word  was  not  spoken, 
"  and  the  war  came." 

In  the  course  of  an  elaborate  speech  in  the  Senate,  on 
the  ioth  of  May,  1879,  Senator  Hill,  of  Georgia,  said: 
11  No,  my  good  Northern  Democratic  brethren,  you  saved 
the  country  at  last ;  you  saved  the  Union  in  the  hour  of 
its  peril — not  the  Republican  party." 

The  audacity  of  this  declaration  is  unequalled  in  the 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  255 

oratory  of  ancient  or  modern  times.  If  Danton's  defini- 
tion of  oratory  and  leadership  be  correct,  "  Laudace, 
Vaadace,  et  toujour s  Vaudace"  the  Senator  from  Georgia, 
in  one  sentence,  made  Cicero  a  babbler  and  Demosthenes 
a  clown ;  made  Caesar  a  camp-follower  and  Napoleon  a 
sutler. 

Let  us  make  every  concession  that  is  consistent  with 
truth  ;  let  us  state  the  case  at  its  best  for  the  Democratic 
party  of  the  North ;  let  us  admit  that  war  was  inevitable 
— that  it  was  a  conflict  of  moral  forces,  old  as  time,  strong 
as  death,  for  which  statesmanship  had  no  solution,  peace 
no  arbitrament.  If  when  war  could  no  longer  be  post- 
poned, was  not  a  thing  to  be  dreaded  but  to  be  met,  if, 
then  the  Democratic  party  of  the  North  had  made  one 
authoritative  declaration  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union, 
the  war  would  have  been  short  and  decisive.  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  might  have 
been  saved  from  the  Confederacy.  It  would  not  have 
been  necessary  to  hold  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri 
by  force  of  arms.  The  war  would  have  filled  but  a  few 
pages  of  history.  At  that  crisis,  when  every  instinct  of 
patriotism  called  aloud  for  action,  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  North,  as  a  party  at  best,  stood  with  folded  arms 
and  dumb  lips.  Silence  then,  is  an  accuser  now.  For 
the  long  continuance  of  the  war ;  for  chapters,  volumes 
of  desolation  ;  for  hecatombs  of  heroic  lives,  history  will 
hold  that  party  responsible.  The  stain  of  blood  is  on  its 
hands  so  deep,  not  the  ocean  of  time  can  wash  it  out. 
It  would  "the  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine,  making 
the  green  ones  red." 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1861,  Congress  was  convened  in 
extraordinary  session.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  war.  The 
proclamation  of  the  President  calling  on  the  militia  of  the 
States  for  seventy-five  thousand  troops  had  been  an- 
swered by  the  Democratic  Governors  of  Maryland,  Vir- 
ginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri  with  denial, 


256  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

contumely,  and  insult.  Massachusetts  troops  had  been 
murdered  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore  while  marching  to 
the  National  Capitol  for  its  protection. 

Many  seats  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  were  vacant. 
Three  weeks  after  Congress  convened  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run  was  fought  and  lost,  and  the  sombre  days  were  upon 
us.  Members  and  Senators  were  leaving  their  places, 
preparing  to  cast  their  lots  with  their  States  or  to  urge 
their  States  to  cast  their  lots  with  them  in  the  ranks  of 
rebellion.  Some  no  doubt  left  in  sorrow,  some  in  anger, 
but  all  with  defiance.  Baker,  in  the  fervor  of  oratory, 
denounced  a  speech**  of  Breckenridge  as  "  polished  trea- 
son," and  asked  "  what  would  have  been  done  with  a 
Roman  Senator  who  had  made  a  speech  in  the  Roman 
Senate  so  full  of  encouragement  to  the  enemy,  when 
Hannibal  was  encamped  before  the  walls  of  the  city,  as 
the  rebels  were  about  Washington  ?  "  Fessenden,  from 
his  seat,  murmured  through  clenched  lips,  "  He  would 
have  been  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  rock."  Breckenridge 
left  the  Senate  to  drag  Kentucky  into  rebellion,  Baker  to 
meet  death  at  Ball  Bluff. 

Oh,  voice  of  Genius !  Oh,  lips  touched  with  the  live 
coal  from  the  altar  of  freedom,  too  early  hushed — too 
early  closed  in  death  !  Oh,  martyr  of  liberty  and  Union, 
would  thou  couldst  have  lived  to  witness  the  fruition  of 
thy  teachings,  the  garnered  results  of  thy  inspiration  and 
heroism ! 

In  this  stormy  session  Broderick  was  not  in  the  Senate. 
The  term  for  which  he  was  chosen  had  not  expired,  but 
the  seat  to  which  he  had  been  chosen  was  filled  by  another. 
Would  he  had  been  there  !  I  can  fancy  him  rising  from 
his  seat  and  saying :  "  Some  of  the  seats  in  this  Chamber 
are  vacant,  and  others  will  be  vacant  soon.  Some  Sena- 
tors remain  because  they  can  serve  the  Rebellion  here 
better  than  elsewhere.  Gentlemen,  stand  not  upon  the 
order  of  your  going,  but  go  at  once.     An  open  enemy  is 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  2$? 

better  than  a  deceitful  friend.  You  took  part  in  an  elec- 
tion and  will  not  abide  the  result.  That  is  infamous  !  I 
have  no  need  to  parse  the  Constitution  to  tell  me  I  have 
a  country.  I  need  not  go  to  State  trials  for  a  definition 
of  treason.  Go,  gentlemen !  Your  conspiracy  may  suc- 
ceed— for  I  know  not  what  vial  of  wrath  Heaven  may 
have  in  store  for  mankind — but  if  you  do  succeed  in  over- 
throwing the  Republic,  you  shall  perish  in  its  ruins." 

No,  he  was  not  there.  He  is  not  here,  but  I  can  almost 
see  his  stalwart  form,  clad  in  the  cerements  of  the  grave, 
stalking  before  me,  pointing  with  slow,  unmoving  finger 
at  the  Democratic  electoral  ticket  of  California ;  and  I  am 
filled  with  wonder  that  any  friend  or  follower  of  his  can 
dare  to  vote  that  ticket,  in  the  solemn  presence  of  the 
past.  Against  that  ticket,  contrived  as  though  to  insult 
his  memory  and  "  justify  the  deep  damnation  of  his  taking 
off,"  "  his  form  and  cause  conjoined,  preaching  to  stones 
would  make  them  capable." 

The  war  went  on  for  weary  months  and  years.  Its 
murky  clouds  were  seldom  illumined  for  us  save  when 
victory  flashed  from  the  sword  of  Grant. 

The  Democratic  party  had  utterly  failed  to  meet  the 
question  of  union  or  disunion.  There  came  another  time 
of  trial.  It  had  another  great  opportunity  to  redeem  its 
past.  There  came  a  time  when  the  exigencies  of  war  de- 
manded the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  The  choice  was 
beween  emancipation  and  victory,  slavery  and  defeat. 
The  word  was  spoken,  the  bonded  were  made  free. 

As  a  mere  war  measure  the  proclamation  of  emancipa- 
tion was  more  than  the  sword  of  Gideon,  more  than  the 
sword  of  Michael ;  it  was  the  sword  of  Truth  from  the 
armory  of  the  God  of  Justice.  But  it  was  far  more  than 
a  war  measure.  It  concerned  universal  humanity  and  all 
time  to  come.  It  was  one  of  the  great  events  of  history. 
As  we  recede  from  it  in  the  perspective  of  the  ages,  it  will 
rise  above  the  pyramids,  above  the  Himalayas,  above  the 


258  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

stars.  Then  the  clock  of  time  struck  twelve.  Then,  if 
ever,  "  the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  the  sons  of 
God  shouted  for  joy." 

In  this  jubilee  of  humanity  there  was  one  note  of  dis- 
cord ;  one  voice  of  lamentation.  To  the  Democratic  party 
the  light  was  darkness.  No  wonder  that  in  its  councils 
the  war  was  a  failure.  What  to  it  was  the  Union  with- 
out slavery  ? 

In  this  great  chapter  of  events  which  makes  our  age 
heroic,  I  ask  what  patriotic  act  or  utterance  can  rightly  be 
ascribed  to  the  Democratic  party  ?  There  were  Demo- 
crats who  were  patriots,  but  their  patriotism  found  voice 
and  action  ouside  the  party.  The  more  they  were  patriots 
the  less  they  were  Democrats. 

Why  go  back?  How  can  the  spirit,  tendency  of  a 
party,  its  moral  force,  direction,  and  purpose  be  judged 
but  by  its  history  ?  These  are  not  changed  in  an  hour, 
by  resolution,  or  by  setting  up  a  figure-head  for  office.  I 
charge  that  the  Democratic  party  has  been  false  to  the 
Union,  false  to  freedom,  false  to  humanity.  Its  claim  to 
administer  the  Government,  which  it  was  willing  to  aban- 
don or  eager  to  destroy,  is  monstrous — a  satire  on  patriot- 
ism, reason,  and  sense.  Nothing  in  its  life  would  become 
it  like  the  leaving  of  it. 

Why  go  back  ?  The  Democratic  party  itself  gives  the 
challenge.  It  pleads  no  baby  act — invites  no  statute  of 
limitations.  It  comes  into  this  canvass  flaunting  its  tradi- 
tions, proud  of  its  identity.  It  appeals  to  its  followers 
as  "  The  gel-orious  old  Democratic  party  !  "  The  distin- 
guished gentleman  who  presided  at  its  late  National  Con- 
vention congratulated  that  body  because  it  contained  so 
many  men  who  were  in  the  Convention  of  '56,  which 
nominated  James  Buchanan,  and  took  hope  that  the  party 
would  again  succeed,  and  restore  the  administration  of  the 
Government  to  Democratic  principles.  Think  of  that ! 
The   administration  of  the  Government  of  the  United 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  259 

States  brought  back  to  the  point  where  James  Buchanan 
left  it !  A  local  orator  recently  asserted  in  San  Francisco, 
that  the  present  political  canvass  was  a  Democratic  upris- 
ing to  reconquer  the  ground  which  had  been  lost  in  the 
past  twenty  years.  Think  of  that !  The  ground  which 
the  Republican  party  has  conquered  in  twenty  years  for 
stability  of  government — the  supremacy  of  law — for  human 
liberty  and  progress,  is  to  be  retaken  in  one  charge  by  the 
massed  Democracy. 

There  is  no  occasion  to  go  back  to  the  past.  The 
Democratic  party  to-day  bases  its  hope  of  success  on  the 
assurance  that  it  will  receive  the  support  of  every  State 
that  joined  the  Confederacy — a  support  secured  and  made 
certain  by  the  same  means  which  carried  their  secession. 
If  it  ought  to  succeed,  if  it  deserves  success,  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union  was  a  blunder,  emancipation  a  crime, 
the  war  for  the  Union  gigantic  murder,  and  the  Republi- 
can party  a  monster  of  iniquity.  It  will  not  succeed  ;  the 
stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  it  ;  the  time  has  not 
come  when  the  American  people  will  concede  that  on 
those  great  questions  of  government,  humanity,  liberty, 
which  in  our  generation  were  championed  on  the  one 
hand  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  on  the  other  by  Jefferson 
Davis,  the  right  is  in  doubt.  They  are  not  questions  of 
a  day  or  an  age,  but  of  all  time.  They  are  a  part  of  a 
conflict  which  in  some  form  is  old  as  history.  It  has 
come  down  by  the  pyramids  of  the  Nile,  by  the  fountains 
of  Judea,  by  the  temples  of  Greece,  by  the  amphitheatres 
of  Rome,  by  the  schools  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  the 
palaces  and  cities  of  modern  art ;  and  it  will  continue  in 
some  form  until  the  right  shall  be  overthrown  or  estab- 
lished, until  anarchy  shall  come  down  like  night,  or  liberty 
and  order  shall  become  the  peaceful  heritage  of  all  the 
nations  of  the  whole  earth. 


2(5o  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED   AT   SACRAMENTO,    OCTOBER  20,    1 886. 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Fellow-citizens  :  I  once  heard 
Starr  King,  of  blessed  memory,  say  in  a  lecture  on  Web- 
ster, that  the  climate  of  New  Hampshire,  where  Webster 
was  born,  had  three  seasons — setting  in  of  winter — winter 
— breaking  up  of  winter. 

In  this  country  we  seem  to  have  three  political  seasons 
— preparing  for  an  election — holding  an  election — getting 
over  an  election. 

It  did  seem  for  some  time  that  the  Democratic  party  in 
this  country  had  concluded  not  to  hold  an  election  this 
year.  The  Republican  local  ticket  is  so  unexceptionable 
we  may  properly  make  its  election  unanimous.  There 
never  was  less  excuse  for  Sacramento  Republicans  to 
scratch  a  ticket  or  to  revise  it.  Whoever  expects  to  vote 
for  a  better  will  not  obtain  it  from  any  "  mutual  admir- 
ation "  society,  and  will  die  of  old  age  before  he  has  an 
opportunity. 

I  am  not  one  of  those  who  believe  that  this  frequency 
of  elections  is  an  unmixed  evil.  Of  course  it  involves 
trouble  and  expense,  but  it  identifies  the  people  with  the 
Government,  it  creates  a  sense  of  direct  responsibility  in 
the  men  who  administer  public  office,  and  is  an  essential 
part  of  our  republican  institutions — our  representative 
democracy. 

The  approaching  election  is  important.  It  involves  the 
choice  of  the  Governor  and  all  the  State  officers  for  four 
years,  of  the  entire  Legislature,  of  three  Justices  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  of  six  members  of  Congress,  of  all  county 
officers,  and  of  a  United  States  Senator. 

The  two  great  parties  which  so  nearly  equally  divide 
the  voters  of  the  whole  country  have  named  their  respec- 
tive tickets,  and  it  is  to  be  assumed  that  they  are  com- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  26 1 

posed  of  fairly  representative  men.  In  so  far  as  the 
canvass  is  conducted  as  a  discussion  of  ideas,  principles, 
and  measures,  and  a  fair  inquiry  into  the  fitness  of  the 
candidates  for  the  offices  they  aspire,  it  can  only  be 
productive  of  good.  In  so  far  as  it  degenerates  into 
misrepresentation,  personal  abuse,  aspersion  of  private 
character,  it  is  evil  in  turning  attention  aside  from  the 
true  issues,  and  in  pandering  to  and  cultivating  a  depraved 
appetite  for  slander  and  vituperation. 

As  for  that  hyper-criticism  that  takes  exception  to  the 
cut  of  a  man's  coat,  to  the  tie  of  his  cravat,  that  calls  a 
man  cold  if  he  does  not  gush,  selfish  if  he  does  not  pro- 
claim his  own  charities,  I  could  wish  that  those  who 
indulge  it  could  be  placed  in  the  fierce  fight  that  beats 
upon  a  candidate,  that  they  might  exhibit  to  the  world  a 
spectacle  of  absolute  perfection. 

Of  the  candidates  for  Governor,  Mr.  Swift  and  Mr. 
Bartlett,  I  can  speak  from  personal  acquaintance.  The 
personal  character  of  each  is  above  reproach.  If  I  knew  I 
were  to  die  to-night,  I  should  be  willing  that  either  should 
administer  my  estate  without  bonds.  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  any  one  who  knows  them  both  intimately,  who 
has  not  the  same  confidence  in  their  integrity  and  good 
faith. 

I  first  met  Mr.  Swift  in  the  Legislature  of  1862-63, 
of  which  we  were  both  members,  and  have  been  intimate 
with  him  ever  since.  He  is  in  the  best  sense  of  that  often 
much  abused  phrase,  "  a  self-made  man."  Without  early 
advantages,  born  to  the  lot  of  labor,  from  early  youth  de- 
pendent on  his  own  exertions,  he  has  neglected  no  oppor- 
tunity of  self-improvement,  until  his  ability  is  known  and 
recognized  throughout  the  entire  State.  He  is  at  once 
profound  in  thought  and  practical  in  application.  He  is 
a  successful  man — but  his  success  is  the  measure  of  his 
industry  and  talent.  In  versatility  I  do  not  know  his 
superior.    His  long  experience  in  public  affairs,  his  mature 


262  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

judgment,  his  close  observation  in  extensive  travel,  well 
fit  him  for  the  complicated  questions  which  are  constantly- 
arising  in  our  State  policy. 

Neither  Mr.  Bartlett  nor  Mr.  Swift  have  been  "  thick 
and  thin  partisans."  Neither  can  indulge  the  old  Demo- 
cratic boast  that  he  has  never  dotted  an  "  i  "  or  crossed  a 
"  t  "  of  a  party  ticket.  Mr.  Bartlett  has  sometimes  acted 
as  an  independent  Democrat ;  Mr.  Swift  as  an  independ- 
ent Republican.  For  the  past  twenty-five  years  Mr. 
Bartlett  has  been  sincerely  in  sympathy  with  the  policy 
and  purposes  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  desirous  of  its 
success,  and  Mr.  Swift  has  been  devoted  to  the  principles 
and  purposes  of  the  Republican  party,  and  it  is  as  the 
leaders  and  representatives  of  their  respective  parties  they 
are  presented  to  us  as  candidates. 

If  the  issues  between  the  parties  are  not  sharply  defined, 
if  you  have  to  read  between  the  lines  of  platforms  of  con- 
ventions to  discover  there  is  a  difference,  it  is  not  because 
the  Republican  party  has  changed  its  principles. 

I  presume  the  Southern  Democrat  will  admit  that  this 
is  a  Nation — one  and  indivisible — but  he  believes  it  be- 
came such,  not  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution,  but  as  a 
result  of  the  defeat  of  the  Rebellion.  He  accepts  the 
doctrine,  not  as  a  fundamental  truth,  but  as  a  hard 
necessity. 

He  will  admit  that  slavery  has  been  destroyed,  can 
never  be  restored,  and,  perhaps,  that  it  should  never  be, 
but  he  will  contend  that  the  proclamation  of  emancipa- 
tion, the  amendments  of  the  Constitution  and  measures 
of  reconstruction  were  acts  of  arbitrary  tyranny. 

There  is  a  problem  in  mathematics  that  two  lines  can 
forever  approach,  but  never  meet.  However  the  Demo- 
cratic party  may  seek  to  ignore  the  past,  may  be  willing 
to  accept  results,  it  can  never  reach  the  lofty  plain  of 
patriotism  on  which  the  Republican  party  has  stood 
from  the  time  of  its  organization.  The  difference  is  funda- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  263 

mental,  historical ;  it  is  in  spirit,  scope,  tendency,  purpose, 
idea.  You  must  not  look  so  much  between  the  lines  of 
platforms  to  find  it  as  beneath  the  lines. 

I  am  not  here  to  assert  that  the  Republican  party  is 
perfect.  No  human  agency  is.  But  I  do  proclaim  my 
belief  that  it  has  accomplished  more  for  humanity  than 
any  other  political  organization  in  all  time.  It  does  not 
propose  to  abandon  any  of  its  trophies,  at  a  senseless  cry 
of  "bloody  shirt."  It  does  not  propose  to  close  the  book 
of  its  achievements,  and  refuse  to  read  the  great  chapters 
it  has  written  in  history,  while  its  old  antagonist  stands 
as  a  living  reminder  of  the  past.  It  is  not  composed 
entirely  of  political  saints.  It  does  not  claim  a  monopoly 
of  the  virtues.  We  must  agree  with  the  Republican  orator 
who  said  :  "  He  knew  men  of  whom  the  only  good  thing 
that  could  be  said  was,  that  they  were  Republicans,  and 
others  of  whom  the  only  bad  thing  that  could  be  said  was, 
that  they  were  Democrats." 

I  think  these  last  are  Republicans  in  disguise — perhaps 
I  should  say  unconscious  Republicans.  They  will  become 
Republicans  when  they  die.  A  good  old  Methodist 
preacher  once  said  to  me  in  my  youth :  "  My  young 
friend,  John  Wesley  was  a  Christian  a  long  time  before 
he  knew  it." 

In  my  boyhood  days,  there  was  a  religious  sect  called 
"  Perfectionists."  If  there  were  an  association  to-day,  and 
perfection  were  the  test  of  admission,  you  might  get  in,  I 
could  not ;  if  I  did,  I  should  be  lonesome. 

Not  all  the  boys  in  blue  in  the  armies  of  the  Potomac, 
of  the  Cumberland,  and  the  Tennessee  knew  the  West- 
minster catechism,  or  could  repeat  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. 
Not  all  the  officers  who  wore  shoulder-straps  and  sashes 
were  devoid  of  self-seeking  and  personal  ambition.  Self- 
ishness, personal  ambition,  always  have  been,  always  will 
be,  ingredients  of  every  political  movement.  Even  re- 
ligious and  philanthropic  associations  are  not  altogether 


264  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

free  from  them.  "  There  is  a  great  deal  of  human  nature 
in  man."  Even  in  this  nineteenth  century,  in  this  "  home 
of  the  brave  and  land  of  the  free,"  the  old  Adam  has  not 
entirely  been  cast  out.  I  have  often  observed  in  human 
affairs  that  an  ounce  of  active  selfishness  will  accomplish 
more  than  a  ton  of  good  intentions.  That  political 
organization  is  best  and  will  accomplish  most  that  regards 
society  as  it  is,  with  its  tremendous  forces  for  good  or  for 
evil,  seeks  to  combine  these  elements  for  the  best  attain- 
able good,  to  marshal  them  the  way  they  ought  to  go,  to 
harness  even  ambition  and  selfishness  to  the  chariot  of 
progress.  That,  we  claim,  the  Republican  party  is  and 
does,  and  that  the  Democratic  party  is  not  and  does  not. 
The  one  subordinates  success  to  truth,  the  other  truth  to 
success. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  charge  that  the  Democratic  party 
subordinates  truth  to  success — that  it  is  disingenuous,  not 
bold,  open,  and  frank. 

The  Democratic  State  Central  Committee  have  plagia- 
rized the  Republican  motto,  and  at  the  head  of  all  their 
advertisements  they  place  the  sentiment :  "  Protection 
for  free  labor  and  home  industries."  In  the  language  of 
Dogberry,  this  "  is  flat  burglary  as  ever  was  committed." 
We  have  all  heard  of  "  stealing  the  livery  of  heaven  to 
serve  the  devil  in" — this  is  stealing  the  livery  of  the 
Republican  party  to  serve  the  Democratic  party. 

The  Democratic  platform  of  this  State  declares  that  the 
duty  on  wool  should  be  restored  to  what  it  was  in  the 
tariff  of  1867.  This  is  simply  a  bid  for  the  votes  of  the 
wool-growers.  Every  intelligent  Democrat  knows  that  if 
the  duty  on  wool  is  to  be  restored  to  what  it  was,  or  main- 
tained at  what  it  is,  it  will  be  by  Republican  votes  in 
Congress,  not  by  Democratic.  At  the  last  session  of 
Congress,  the  Democratic  leader  on  the  floor  introduced 
a  bill  placing  wool  on  the  free  list.  Out  of  185  Demo- 
cratic Representatives,  less  than  forty  voted  against  its 


POLITICAL  LIFE,  265 

consideration ;  out  of  140  Republicans,  only  seven  voted 
in  its  favor. 

In  the  Forty-eighth  Congress,  the  contest  in  the  caucus 
for  Speaker  of  the  House  was  between  Carlisle,  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania.  Next  to  the  Presi- 
dent, the  Speaker  of  the  House  is  the  most  important 
political  officer  in  the  Government.  He  appoints  the 
committees,  can  recognize  whomsoever  he  chooses  on  the 
floor,  and,  in  shaping  legislation,  has  more  power  than 
the  President.  Carlisle  is  an  honest  man,  and  has  the 
courage  of  conviction.  He  is  the  ablest  advocate  of 
free-trade  doctrine  in  either  house  of  Congress.  Randall 
is  a  man  of  perhaps  equal  ability  and  integrity,  of  larger 
public  experience,  a  Democrat,  no  doubt,  from  conviction, 
and  a  Protectionist  from  the  accident  of  his  birth  and  resi- 
dence in  Pennsylvania,  where  in  some  districts  they  still 
think  they  are  voting  for  "  Polk  and  Dallas,  and  the  tariff 
of  '42." 

Of  course,  Carlisle  was  nominated  and  elected.  In  the 
Forty-ninth  Congress,  he  was  nominated  in  the  Democratic 
caucus  without  opposition.  Promptly  on  his  first  election, 
he  appointed  Colonel  Morrison,  of  Illinois,  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  which  has  charge  of 
all  revenue  bills,  and  shares  with  the  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations the  leadership  of  the  House.  Morrison  is  bold, 
honest,  and  patriotic.  He  sincerely  believes  that  protective 
duties  are  robbery.  He  has  constantly,  earnestly  endeav- 
ored to  modify  the  tariff  in  the  line  of  his  convictions, 
willing  to  take  what  he  could  get,  if  he  could  not  get  all 
that  he  wanted.  The  consideration  of  his  bill  for  a  hori- 
zontal reduction  of  the  tariff  was  defeated  by  the  almost 
unanimous  vote  of  the  Republican  members,  aided  by 
about  forty  Democrats — recalcitrant  Democrats,  the  lead- 
ing Democratic  papers  call  them.  The  Louisville  Courier- 
Journal,  one  of  the  ablest,  if  not  the  ablest,  Democratic 
paper  in  the  United  States,  promptly  read  these  "  recalci- 


266  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

trants  "  out  of  the  party,  asserts  that  none  of  them  from 
the  southwest  can  be  returned  to  Congress,  and  advises 
Sam  Randall  to  leave  the  Democratic  party,  to  join  the 
Republican,  where  he  properly  belongs,  on  account  of  his 
views  in  regard  to  protective  duties. 

Mr.  Manning,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  is  un- 
doubtedly the  ablest  member  of  the  Cabinet,  and  has  the 
closest  and  most  confidential  relations  with  the  President. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  Daniel  Manning,  it  is  not  probable 
that  Grover  Cleveland  would  ever  have  been  Governor  of 
New  York  or  President  of  the  United  States.  When,  a 
few  months  ago,  he  tendered  his  resignation  on  account 
of  his  illness,  his  letter  contained  two  suggestions  in  the 
nature  of  a  testamentary  legacy.  They  were  to  the  effect 
that  if  the  coinage  of  silver  were  stopped  we  should  have 
the  best  currency  in  the  world  ;  and  that  if  our  tariff  were 
revised  and  duties  imposed  only  on  a  few  leading  articles, 
we  should  have  the  best  revenue  system  possible.  He 
undoubtedly  voiced  the  sentiment  of  the  Administration, 
and  the  leading  sentiment  of  his  party.  Now  this  is  just 
the  kind  of  tariff  that  England  has,  and  it  approaches 
more  nearly  to  absolute  free  trade  than  that  of  any  other 
nation  in  the  civilized  world.  The  principle  of  protection 
is  entirely  eliminated. 

The  people  of  the  Southern  States  are  imbued  with  the 
doctrine  of  free  trade,  and  have  been  since  Calhoun  in- 
voked "  nullification  "  to  prevent  the  collection  of  duties 
at  Charleston.  The  Southern  Confederacy  held  out  the 
boon  of  free  trade  to  England  and  France  as  an  induce- 
ment to  recognition.  New  York  City,  the  commercial 
capital  of  the  country,  and  so  largely  engaged  in  foreign 
commerce,  is  for  free  trade,  and  the  Democratic  party 
depends  upon  the  Southern  States  and  the  city  of  New 
York  for  any  national  success.  I  am  not  here  to  discuss 
the  comparative  merits  of  protection  and  free  trade.  It 
is  a  broad  question,  about  which  many  honestly  differ. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  267 

What  I  object  to  in  the  position  of  the  Democratic  party 
is  that  it  is  not  honest.  The  direction  of  the  party,  its 
best  and  intelligent  sentiment,  is  for  free  trade — for  such 
a  tariff  as  Secretary  Manning  recommends.  Every  Na- 
tional Democratic  Convention  will  adopt  a  resolution  in 
favor  of  a  "  tariff  for  revenue  only,"  and  every  Democratic 
State  Convention  will  resolve  in  favor  of  protective  duties 
on  every  local  production. 

Judge  Baldwin  once  wittily  said  of  a  famous  decision 
of  our  Supreme  Court  that  "  it  gave  the  law  to  the  North 
and  the  negro  to  the  South."  The  Democratic  party 
discounts  that.  It  offers  free  trade  or  protection  to  any 
one  who  wants  either,  or  it  will  serve  them  both  together 
in  just  the  proportions  any  individual  voter  fancies. 

As  a  National  Democrat  the  Californian  is  in  favor  of 
a  tariff  for  revenue  only — as  a  State  Democrat  he  is  in 
favor  of  protective  duties  on  wool,  on  wine,  on  fruits,  on 
quicksilver — and  certainly  one  very  distinguished  Demo- 
crat would  be  sorry  to  see  the  duty  on  borax  reduced. 
The  Louisiana  Democrat  is  in  favor  of  free  trade — and 
protection  for  sugar.  Even  the  South  Carolinian,  though 
he  may  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  Calhoun,  if  he  happens  to 
live  in  a  rice  district,  is  for  free  trade — and  protection  for 
rice.  The  Michigan  Democrat,  nationally,  is  for  a  tariff 
for  revenue  only — as  a  Michigander,  he  is  for  protection 
to  lumber  and  salt.  The  New  Jersey  Democrat  is  for 
free  trade  and  protection  for  silk.  The  New  England 
Democrat  is  for  free  trade,  and  especially  for  free  wool, 
and  for  protection  for  woollen  fabrics,  and  whatever  else 
is  manufactured  in  New  England.  The  Pennsylvania 
Democrat  will  endorse  the  national  platform  "  for  revenue 
only  " — as  a  member  of  Congress  he  will  trade  everything 
with  everybody  for  protection  of  coal,  iron,  and  Pennsyl- 
vania manufactures. 

In  national  convention,  in  the  supreme  council,  the 
party  is  for  tariff  for  revenue  only,  discarding  the  prin- 


268  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ciple  of  protection.  In  the  various  State  conventions  its 
opinions  make  a  political  crazy-quilt,  and  justify  the 
famous  expression  of  General  Hancock  that  "  the  tariff  is 
a  local  question." 

The  position  of  the  Democratic  party  on  that  subject 
was  well  illustrated  by  a  wag,  who  said  "  it  reminded  him 
of  the  boy  whose  trousers  were  made  the  same  way  be- 
fore and  behind,  so  that  the  boy  never  knew  whether  he 
was  going  to  school  or  coming  home." 

In  contradistinction  to  this,  the  Republican  party  is 
in  favor  of  "  Protection  of  American  labor  and  industries." 
It  supports  it  as  a  principle — as  a  broad  national  policy. 
It  proclaims  it  everywhere — in  districts  where  it  is  un- 
popular as  well  as  where  it  is  popular.  It  does  not  hedge 
or  double  deal.  It  is  consistent.  Its  position  may  be 
assaulted,  its  sincerity  cannot  be  doubted. 

The  resolution  of  the  Democratic  Convention  of  this 
State  on  the  Chinese  question  is  open  to  a  charge  graver 
than  disingenuous.  An  old  acquaintance  of  mine  coined 
a  word  not  to  be  found  in  any  dictionary — "duplicious  " 
— which  I  have  added  to  my  vocabulary,  and  often  find 
convenient.  I  desire  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of  pro- 
priety, and  will  simply  say  that  this  resolution  is  "  du- 
plicious."  It  calls  for  the  abrogation  of  the  Burlingame- 
Swift  treaty.  The  men  who  wrote  the  resolution  knew 
there  was  no  such  treaty — the  intelligent  men  who  voted 
for  it  knew  there  was  none.  Every  man  in  the  State  who 
is  conversant  with  current  history  knows  that  the  Bur- 
lingame  treaty  never  had  a  more  severe  critic  than  Mr. 
Swift.  Mr.  Swift  was  one  of  the  commissioners  who 
negotiated  the  treaty  with  China,  changing  the  Bur- 
lingame  treaty  and  enabling  our  Government  to  restrict 
Chinese  immigration.  He  had  a  most  difficult  task.  He 
was  one  of  three  commissioners.  It  is  but  just  to  say 
that  he  had  first  to  bring  his  own  coadjutors  to  his  own 
views,  and  to  secure  such  concessions  from  the  represen- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  269 

tatives  of  the  Chinese  Government  as  were  possible. 
From  the  first  he  was  handicapped  by  his  associates.  He 
did  secure  more  than  his  most  sanguine  friends  thought 
possible.  It  was  for  him  a  diplomatic  triumph.  That 
Chinese  exclusion  is  not  more  rigid  is  not  the  defect  of 
the  treaty,  but  of  the  laws  and  their  administration.  The 
memorial  which  he  prepared  to  Congress  on  the  Chinese 
question  is  the  ablest  presentation  of  California  opinion 
ever  made.  No  one  man  on  this  coast  has  done  so  much 
towards  educating  public  opinion  in  the  Eastern  States 
on  this  subject. 

Yet  the  Democratic  convention,  ignoring  facts,  which 
are  as  open  as  the  day,  by  an  innuendo  as  cowardly  as  it 
is  false,  endeavors  to  identify  him  with  the  Burlingame 
Treaty.  I  have  observed  with  surprise  and  regret  that 
Mr.  Bartlett  justifies  this  attempt,  and  in  doing  so  resorts 
to  a  verbal  quibble  unworthy  of  him  or  any  other  honor- 
able gentleman.  That  is,  because  Mr.  Swift  has  done 
everything  in  the  power  of  man  in  changing  the  Burlin- 
game Treaty,  he  is  responsible  for  its  adoption. 

I  want  to  be  polite — or  at  least  not  impolite — I  will 
simply  say  that  this  phrase,  "  Burlingame-Swift  Treaty," 
is  a  gratuitous  ter-giv-er-sa-tion.  Any  one  who  could  be 
deceived  by  it  would  vote  the  Democratic  ticket  anyhow. 

I  charge  the  Democratic  party  with  dissimulation  in 
dealing  with  what  are  popularly  known  as  the  "  labor 
questions.''  It  has  always  claimed  to  be  the  champion  of 
labor,  the  laborer's  friend  and  protector.  That  has  long 
been  a  large  part  of  its  political  stock  in  trade.  It  was 
even  when  it  justified  slavery  and  the  bringing  of  free 
labor  in  competition  with  slave.  A  Democratic  national 
administration  has  been  in  power  nearly  two  years.  Sel- 
dom, if  ever,  in  our  history  has  discontent  been  so  rife, 
have  labor  strikes  been  so  frequent,  and  the  orderly  con- 
dition of  society  been  so  disturbed.  I  do  not  charge  that 
these  things  are  the  direct  result  of  a  Democratic  admin- 


270  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

istration.  Far  from  it.  They  might  have  occurred  under 
a  Republican.  What  I  do  charge  and  maintain  is,  that 
the  Democratic  party  constantly  holds  out  delusive  hopes, 
and  that  their  inevitable  disappointment  embitters  the  lot 
of  men  who  are  compelled  to  labor  for  daily  bread.  It 
inculcates  and  insinuates  that  the  inequalities  of  wealth 
and  condition  are  created  by  law ;  that  the  men  who  pay 
wages  are  the  natural  enemies  of  the  men  who  receive 
wages,  and  that  in  this  country  there  are  arbitrary  class 
distinctions  ;  that  the  rich  are  necessarily  oppressive,  that 
the  poor  are  inevitably  oppressed.  Its  appeals  are  con- 
stantly to  what  it  terms  the  "  laboring  classes,"  as  if  there 
were  any  class  of  people  in  this  land  of  equal  laws,  that 
had  an  interest  distinct  from  and  antagonistic  to  the  well- 
being  of  the  whole. 

Now  the  difficulties  and  hardships  arising  out  of  the 
inequalities  of  human  condition  are  as  old  as  history. 
Their  solution  has  been  sought  by  priest  and  philosopher, 
by  toiler  and  statesmen.  I  do  not  know  that  their  solu- 
tion is  possible. 

Anarchism  will  not  solve  them ;  that  form  of  Socialism 
which  seeks  to  abolish  private  property  will  not  solve 
them  ;  demagogic  appeals  to  prejudice,  declamation,  how- 
ever brilliant,  will  throw  no  light  upon  them.  If  they  can 
be  ameliorated,  or  placed  in  process  of  ultimate  solution, 
it  will  be  by  the  orderly  progress  of  society,  not  by  social 
convulsion  and  revolution.  It  will  be  by  holding  fast  to 
that  which  is  good  while  seeking  whatever  is  better.  It 
will  be  by  recognizing  the  truth  that  one  man's  liberty 
ends  when  it  infringes  upon  another's  rights ;  that  there 
can  be  no  liberty,  security,  order,  or  progress  except 
under  enlightened  law ;  and  that  no  power  is  so  great  as 
to  be  above  the  control  of  the  law,  no  individual  so  weak 
as  to  be  beneath  its  protection. 

These  principles,  these  aims  and  purposes  the  Repub- 
lican party  embodies  and  champions  in  a  higher  degree 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  27 1 

than  any  other  great  political  organization  on  the  habit- 
able globe. 

The  millennium  will  never  be  inaugurated  by  Act  of 
Congress  or  of  the  Legislature.  If  there  has  been  one 
since  "  our  first  parents  fell,"  history  fails  to  record  it. 
The  progress  of  humanity  has  been  slow  and  toilsome, 
over  steep  and  stony  places,  and  its  footprints  have  been 
marked  with  blood,  even  as  the  Saviour's  were  when  he 
bore  the  cross  to  the  crucifixion. 

It  is  too  early  to  pass  judgment  on  the  administration 
of  President  Cleveland.  If  we  may  infer  the  future  from 
the  past,  it  will  not  be  distinguished  either  by  its  domes- 
tic or  foreign  policy.  Even  a  Pan-Electric  light  would 
reveal  nothing  brilliant  so  far.  Its  attainments  in  phi- 
lology seem  to  be  higher  than  in  statesmanship  or  diplo- 
macy. It  is  likely  to  go  into  history  as  the  author  of  two 
phrases,  "  offensive  partisanship  "  and  "  innocuous  desue- 
tude." 

I  know  what  an  "  offensive  partisan  "  is — it  is  a  Repub- 
lican in  office.  A  Democrat  in  office  is  a  sublimely  disin- 
terested patriot.  As  for  the  exact  meaning  of  "  innocuous 
desuetude,"  you  will  have  to  seek  for  it  in  the  depths  of 
the  profound  obscure. 

It  is  somewhat  famous  for  two  other  incidents.  Cleve- 
land sent  a  pre-natal  message  to  Congress  advising  the 
demonetization  of  silver  before  he  was  inaugurated,  and 
the  national  flag  was  half-masted  for  the  death  of  Jake 
Thompson. 

The  highest  praise  that  can  be  accorded  to  it  is  negative 
— it  has  not  been  so  harmful  as  was  feared.  There  is  a 
reason  for  this.  The  Republican  party  has  so  deeply  en- 
graven its  ideas,  principles,  and  purposes  on  the  national 
policy  that  they  cannot  be  erased.  The  party  may  be 
defeated,  but  its  moral  triumph  is  secure  beyond  the 
chance  of  time  or  change  of  circumstances.  You  can  no 
more  obscure  that  than  you  can  reverse  the  verdict  of 


272  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

history,  or  turn  back  the  iron  leaves  in  the  book  o£ 
fate. 

The  most  ardent  friend  of  the  present  administration 
will  hardly  claim  that  its  diplomacy  has  redounded  to  the 
national  honor.  During  the  twenty-four  years  that  the 
Republican  party  has  administered  the  government,  in  its 
intercourse  with  foreign  powers  it  maintained  the  just 
rights  of  the  nation,  under  circumstances  the  most  diffi- 
cult and  trying,  with  dignity,  firmness,  and  self-respect. 
It  did  not  have  one  voice  for  the  strong  and  another  for 
the  weak.  It  did  not  truckle  to  the  one  or  hector  the 
other.     Let  me  recall  a  few  notable  illustrations. 

When  in  the  hour  of  the  nation's  supreme  peril — when 
the  governments  of  England  and  France  were  seeking  for 
a  pretext  to  recognize  the  "  Confederacy  " — the  English 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  said  to  the  American  Min- 
ister that  the  cruisers  that  were  fitting  out  in  British 
ports  to  destroy  American  commerce  could  not  be  re- 
strained from  sailing,  as  there  was  no  municipal  law  to 
prevent,  the  American  Minister  replied,  "  My  Lord,  this 
means  war,"  and  no  other  cruisers  sailed.  For  injuries 
inflicted  under  those  which  had  sailed,  England  was  com- 
pelled to  settle  under  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  upon 
the  Alabama  claims — another  triumph  for  American 
diplomacy. 

When  Commodore  Wilkes,  in  an  exuberance  of  patriot- 
ism, seized  Mason  and  Slidell,  rebel  emissaries,  on  the 
Treitty  he  violated  the  American  doctrine  that  a  neutral 
flag  protects  a  neutral  ship.  Against  temporary  public 
sentiment  in  the  North,  a  Republican  administration 
stood  firmly  and  calmly  for  the  right.  It  snatched  the 
flower  of  safety  from  the  nettle  of  danger.  It  obtained 
from  Great  Britain  the  acknowledgment  that  there  was 
no  right  of  search  on  the  high  seas  ;  that  a  neutral  flag 
protects  a  neutral  ship.  That  was  the  question  about 
which  England  and  the  United  States  had  fought  in  the 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  2/3 

War  of  1 8 12,  and  which  had  not  been  settled  by  the  treaty 
of  Ghent.  For  the  first  time  England  conceded  that  the 
American  doctrine  was  right. 

The  principle  for  which  Lawrence  exclaimed  with  his 
dying  breath,  "  Don't  give  up  the  ship,"  for  which  Perry 
triumphed  on  Lake  Erie  and  Jackson  at  New  Orleans, 
was  vindicated  as  a  part  of  international  law. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  when  the  sound  of  the  cannon 
had  scarcely  ceased  to  reverberate,  the  American  govern- 
ment politely  but  firmly  said  to  Emperor  Louis  Napoleon 
that  the  French  troops  in  Mexico  had  no  business  there, 
and  had  better  go  home.     They  went. 

In  the  times  of  extremest  peril,  when  the  war  clouds 
hung  blackest  and  were  charged  with  the  lightnings  of 
destruction,  when  the  sky  was  tempest-tost,  the  Re- 
publican party  abated  no  jot  or  tittle  of  the  just  rights  of 
the  nation — it  maintained  its  honor  abroad,  while  it  pre- 
served its  existence  at  home. 

Let  me  revert.  I  do  not  claim  that  the  Republican 
party  is  perfect,  or  composed  of  perfect  material.  This 
government,  State  and  national,  will  be  administered  by 
one  of  the  two  great  parties  which  contend  for  supremacy, 
and  have  contended  for  twenty-six  years.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  perfection,  but  of  choice.  Which  will  best 
maintain  the  honor  of  the  country  abroad,  and  develop 
its  resources  at  home  ?  Which  will  best  promote  social 
order  and  orderly  progress?  Which  is  more  in  sympathy 
with  those  individual  rights  which  are  the  foundation  of 
free  government  ?  Try  them  not  by  profession  and  plat- 
form, but  by  their  traditions  and  history,  their  general 
direction  and  animating  spirit,  and  there  can  be  but  one 
answer. 

In  the  political  campaign  which  resulted  in  the  election 
of  Cleveland,  the  Democratic  party  appealed  to  the 
people  for  a  change  of  administration  "that  the  books 
might  be  examined."     They  have  been  examined  with 

18 


274  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

unfriendly  eyes.  No  forced  balance,  no  suspicious  entry 
has  been  found.  The  money  in  the  Treasury  has  been 
counted,  and  found  to  agree  with  "the  books"  to  the 
fraction  of  a  cent. 

There  are  other  records  which  the  party  might  examine 
with  profit.  They  would  find  to  the  credit  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  a  nation  redeemed  from  civil  war,  the 
greatest  rebellion  of  history  vanquished,  a  dissevered 
Union  re-established,  made  indissoluble,  and  sealed  with 
universal  freedom.  It  would  find  a  prostrate  credit  re- 
stored and  made  the  highest  in  the  world.  It  would  find 
the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  charters  of  political 
equality  and  civil  liberty.  It  would  find  the  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation.  It  would  find  the  greatest  chapters  of 
political  history  ever  written  in  the  book  of  time,  illumin- 
ated with  an  effulgence  as  from  above  the  skies,  radiated 
with  the  light  of  the  loftiest  patriotism,  and  of  a  heroism 
that  conquered  death  streaming  from  the  illustrious 
names  of  Lincoln  and  Grant. 

Fellow-Republicans :  Can  any  Republican  afford  to  fall 
out  of  the  ranks  in  the  presence  of  the  consolidated  De- 
mocracy? While  the  rebel  army  was  in  the  field  the 
Union  army  could  not  disband ;  no  Union  soldier  could 
desert.  At  the  coronation  of  Napoleon  the  Emperor 
asked  Marshal  Augereau  "  if  anything  were  wanting  to 
the  splendor  of  the  scene?"  "Nothing,"  replied  the 
Marshal,  "  but  the  presence  of  those  who  have  died  to 
prevent  all  this." 

Shall  the  control  of  the  destiny  of  this  nation  be  given 
to  the  Democratic  party  ?  If  so,  let  the  roll  be  called  of 
those  who  have  died  that  the  nation  might  live.  Let 
polling-places  be  opened  at  every  battlefield,  from  Bull 
Run  to  Appomattox,  and  the  silent  protest  of  the  dead 
be  placed  on  that  page  of  history. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  275 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED    IN    THE    SENATE    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES,   JUNE    8,    1879. 

LEGAL  TENDER  OF  SILVER   COIN. 

The  Senate,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  resumed  the  consideration  of 
•the  bill  (S.  263)  to  amend  the  laws  relating  to  legal  tender  of  silver  coin,  the 
pending  question  being  on  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Bogy  to  the  amendment 
reported  by  the  Committee  on  Finance. 

Mr.  Booth  said  : 

Mr.  President :  The  provisions  of  the  bill  under  con- 
sideration, known  as  the  "  silver  bill,"  are  important ;  its 
theory  is  more  important.  I  ask  the  hearing  of  the  Sen- 
ate to  some  considerations  touching  both  its  form  and 
substance. 

First,  let  us  examine  the  bill  in  its  details  with  a  view 
to  its  probable  practical  operation.  The  first  section  pro- 
vides for  the  coinage  of  a  silver  dollar  of  412.8  grains  of 
standard  silver,  and  that  said  dollar  shall  be  a  legal  tender 
for  any  amount  not  exceeding  $20  in  any  one  payment, 
and  shall  be  receivable  in  payment  of  all  dues  to  the 
United  States  except  duties  on  imports ;  and  that  the 
trade-dollar  of  420  grains  standard  silver  shall  no  longer 
be  a  legal  tender. 

The  circulating  medium  of  the  United  States  consists 
of  greenbacks  and  bank-notes  convertible  into  greenbacks, 
of  gold  coin,  fractional  currency  now  being  retired,  and 
subsidiary  silver  coin,  really  a  token  coinage  by  a  limita- 
tion upon  the  amount  to  be  issued,  made  equal  to  green- 
backs in  value ;  gold  coin  being  used  only  in  business 
transactions  on  the  Pacific  coast,  where  it  circulates  to  the 
amount  of  about  $25,000,000,  and  by  the  Government  in 
the  collection  of  customs  and  payment  of  principal  and 
interest  of  funded  debt,  and  worth  at  this  time  12  to  13 
per  cent,  more  than  the  national  and  bank  notes  which 
constitute  the  great  body  of  the  circulation. 

Now,  certainly  one  great  object  to  be  attained,  the 


2?6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

greatest,  I  think,  in  any  legislation  upon  the  currency,  is 
to  bring  the  different  currencies  in  use  to  one  standard  of 
value,  and,  if  possible,  to  that  standard  recognized  by  the 
commercial  world.  The  new  factor  which  it  is  proposed 
to  introduce  not  only  does  not  reconcile  those  now  in  use, 
but  is  an  additional  element  of  variation. 

When  this  bill  was  introduced  about  a  month  ago,  the 
bullion  of  the  silver  dollar  it  proposes  to  coin  was  worth 
II  per  cent,  less  than  gold  and  2  per  cent,  more  than 
greenbacks.  It  is  now  worth  13  per  cent,  less  than  gold 
and  J  to  ^  per  cent,  less  than  greenbacks.  If  this  bill  can 
be  operative  at  all,  the  value  of  silver  will  be  somewhat 
enhanced  by  the  new  use  created  for  it,  but  just  how  much 
no  one  can  predict.  If,  in  the  fluctuation  of  the  bullion 
market  or  the  value  of  legal  tenders,  the  silver  dollar 
should  again  become  worth  more  than  the  greenback, 
who  would  pay  an  obligation  in  silver  which  could  be  dis- 
charged in  United  States  notes  ?  You  compel  the  use  of 
gold  for  certain  purposes  but  give  an  option  to  silver,  and 
whenever  it  is  worth  more  than  United  States  notes  it 
will  drop  from  the  Mint  into  the  melting-pot,  but  never 
go  into  circulation. 

In  that  condition,  you  could  only  compel  its  use  by 
withdrawing  from  circulation  all  national  and  bank  notes 
of  less  denomination  than  $20,  and  then  you  would  have 
the  anomaly  of  requiring  small  transactions  to  be  con- 
ducted and  small  payments  to  be  made  in  a  medium  of 
greater  value  than  large  ones,  in  place  of  the  absurdity  of 
supposing  it  will  be  done  without  compulsion. 

Suppose  there  shall  be  continued  decline  in  silver  in  the 
markets  of  the  world,  and  it  would  take  more  silver  dollars 
than  greenbacks  to  purchase  a  hundred  dollars  in  gold  or 
a  hundred  bushels  of  wheat,  then,  as  fast  as  they  could  be 
manufactured,  silver  dollars  would  crowd  national  notes 
out  of  circulation,  supplanting  paper  money,  not  by  a 
superior,  but  by  an  inferior  currency.     That  is  the  natural 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  2J7 

law,  if  there  be  anything  natural  about  money.  I  admit 
that  it  would  be  counteracted  for  a  time  by  the  practical 
limitation  of  silver  coinage  to  the  capacity  of  our  mints. 

This  is  purely  mechanical,  and  does  not  concern  the 
theory  of  the  bill.  The  tendency  of  silver  to  fall  below 
greenbacks  would  be  mitigated,  not  destroyed,  by  the 
inability  of  the  mint  to  manufacture  silver  dollars  fast 
enough  to  supply  the  demand ;  this  indeed  would  be  a 
new  variable  quantity  introduced  into  a  question,  which 
can  only  be  solved  by  an  equation — an  equation  we  shall 
endeavor  in  vain  to  formulate  where  all  the  quantities  are 
unknown  variables.  No  man  can  predict  the  relative  value 
of  silver  and  greenbacks  six  months  from  now,  or  on  the 
day  this  bill  may  become  a  law.  Yet  the  practical  opera- 
tion of  the  bill  depends  upon  the  remote  contingency  that 
this  silver  coinage,  with  its  legal  tender  limited  to  $20,  shall 
settle  to  and  fluctuate  with  national  notes  legal  tenders 
for  any  amount, 

Rhetorical  criticism  distinguishes  between  an  improba- 
ble possibility  and  an  impossible  probability.  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  know  to  which  of  these  categories  this  contingency 
belongs. 

Though  I  admit  that  silver,  being  below  greenbacks, 
the  bill  may  be  operative  for  a  period — not,  however,  ex 
proprio  vigor  e, — but  simply  from  the  mechanical  disability 
of  the  mint  to  comply  with  the  theory  of  the  bill. 

We  have  had  experience  enough  to  teach  us  that  values 
cannot  be  fixed  by  legislation.  The  only  possible  way  in 
which  an  identity  of  value  can  be  maintained  between 
two  instruments  created  by  law,  is  to  make  them  inter- 
convertible ;  and  that  brings  me  to  consider  the  second 
section  of  the  bill  which  provides: 

First.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  authorized 
to  exchange  silver  dollars  for  an  equal  amount  of  United 
States  notes  which  shall  be  retired  and  cancelled,  and  not 
again  be  replaced  by  other  notes,  etc. 


278  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Now,  how  is  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  get  silver 
dollars  with  which  to  redeem  greenbacks?  By  collections 
of  internal  revenue? 

If  silver  should  be  worth  less  than  greenbacks,  it  will  be 
paid  into  the  Treasury  to  the  extent  of  its  manufacture ; 
but  who  would  want  to  exchange  greenbacks  for  it,  giving 
more  for  less?  In  that  event,  it  must  either  lie  in  the 
Treasury  as  dead  capital,  or  be  paid  out  to  reluctant 
creditors  of  the  Government  under  the  twenty-dollar  legal- 
tender  clause ;  the  smallest  claims  upon  the  Government 
losing  the  largest  percentage  of  the  discount,  and  claims 
of  $20,  or  under,  losing  it  all.  Suppose  the  silver  to  be 
worth  more  than  greenbacks,  who  will  pay  it  into  the 
Treasury  when  he  can  pay  greenbacks — that  is,  pay  more 
when  he  can  pay  less  ? 

To  cover  every  contingency,  suppose  that,  being  in 
commercial  value  less  than  or  equal  to  greenbacks,  it 
does  get  into  the  Treasury,  and  that  in  the  fluctuations 
of  both  or  either  it  is  enhanced — then  first  come  first 
served.  The  most  active  holders  of  greenbacks  would 
drain  the  Treasury's  till,  and  the  Government  would  be 
compelled  to  suspend  specie  payments  after  resumption. 
As  soon  as  that  contingency  did  occur,  no  more  silver 
would  flow  into  the  Treasury,  and  silver-specie  redemption 
would  have  the  fluctuations  of  the  tides  without  their 
regularity. 

Again,  we  have  a  law  requiring  the  redemption  of  na- 
tional notes  in  coin  on  and  after  January  1,  1879.  The 
present  bill  is  not  inconsistent  with  it,  and  if  it  be  enacted 
and  the  resumption  law  not  repealed,  we  shall  have  this 
condition  of  things  on  that  day  ;  the  bills  of  the  denomi- 
nation of  $20  or  under  can  be  redeemed  in  silver,  of  larger 
denomination  must  be  redeemed  in  gold. 

Of  course  the  largest  holders  of  money  could  avail 
themselves  of  this  profit  to  the  greatest  extent.  The 
banks  would  accumulate  the  greenbacks  of  denominations 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  279 

larger  than  $20,  in  order  to  make  the  premium  on  gold. 
They  would  call  in  their  own  large  notes,  substitute  the 
smaller,  and  be  able  to  redeem  their  own  circulation  in 
silver  while  receiving  the  interest  on  their  bonds  and 
collecting  their  reserves  from  the  Government  in  gold. 
Under  the  law  a  bank  having  any  large  bills  in  circulation 
could  easily  avail  itself  of  the  opportunity  for  the  whole 
of  this  profit,  and  retiring  its  whole  circulation  by  making 
the  deposit  required  in  the  Treasury  and  then  issuing  a 
new  one. 

The  remaining  provision  of  this  section  requires  that  the 
United  States  notes  which  shall  be  redeemed  in  silver  be 
cancelled  and  not  be  replaced  by  other  notes.  Upon  this 
I  have  only  two  suggestions  : 

First.  In  the  past  few  years  silver  has  been  just  as 
mercurial,  just  as  variable  in  value  as  United  States  notes  ; 
for  the  one  quality  we  desire  in  money,  stability,  it  is  not 
superior.  While  this  condition  continues,  it  is  a  question- 
able gain  to  substitute  an  interest-bearing  for  a  non- 
interest-bearing  debt. 

Second.  No  one,  I  imagine,  supposes  that  silver  itself, 
except  for  purposes  of  change,  will  circulate  very  exten- 
sively as  money. 

The  freight  on  silver,  when  sent  by  express,  by  railroad, 
or  steamship,  may  not  be  greater  than  on  gold  ;  but  no 
one  wants  to  carry  even  $20  in  silver  in  his  pocket,  or  to 
get  an  express-wagon,  a  hand-cart,  or  a  dray  to  make  a  de- 
posit in,  or  collect  a  draft  from,  a  bank. 

What  would  really  circulate  would  be  promises  to  pay 
silver,  and  we  should  end  by  using  the  credit  of  a  bank 
instead  of  the  credit  of  the  Government  as  money. 

There  are  those  who  think  this  an  improvement,  and 
that  it  is  "  specie  payment."  I  do  not ;  and  I  think  the 
history  of  American  banking  sustains  the  conclusion  that 
bank  credit  is  not  any  more  stable  than  the  credit  of  the 
Government. 


280  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  fact  that  under  every  system  of  banking  we  have 
ever  had  prior  to  the  one  we  now  have,  which  is  based 
upon  the  credit  of  the  Government,  the  loss  to  the  people 
through  bank  bills  has  equalled  their  average  circulation 
every  thirty  years  may  justify  the  doubt  that  that  model 
of  human  perfection,  the  bank  director,  is  absolutely  and 
immaculately  infallible,  or  that  the  difference  between  him 
and  that  summum  malum,  the  politician,  is  so  great  that  it 
cannot  be  calculated  by  logarithms  or  measured  by  astro- 
nomical instruments. 

I  pass  to  section  3,  and  have  to  confess  that  its  meaning 
is  to  my  mind  so  obscure,  that  I  fear  I  shall  not  comment 
intelligently  upon  the  meaning  it  is  intended  to  express. 
Its  first  provision  reads  : 

"  That  any  owner  of  silver  bullion  may  deposit  the  same  at  the  mints,  to 
be  taken  at  its  market  value,  as  ascertained  and  publicly  announced  from 
time  to  time  by  the  Director  of  the  Mint,  with  the  approval  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  and  to  be  paid  for  either  in  silver  dollars,  or  with  gold 
coin,  or  United  States  notes." 

The  privilege  to  deposit  is  as  wide  as  language  can  make 
it.  Under  any  ordinary  rule  of  interpretation  payment 
must  be  made  on  the  day  of  deposit  at  the  market  value 
of  that  day.  Our  mints  have  a  capacity  to  coin,  in  addi- 
tion to  other  necessary  business,  not  to  exceed  fifteen 
million  silver  dollars  a  year.  Under  this  provision  of  the 
bill,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  silver-bullion  market, 
enough  bullion  might  be  deposited  in  one  day  to  run  the 
mints  for  years  ;  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  would  be 
at  the  mercy  of  the  bullion  dealers,  and  would  be  com- 
pelled to  receive  and  pay  for  bullion  in  large  quantities 
when  it  was  high  and  unable  to  buy  it  when  it  became 
cheap.  So  far  from  being  able  to  take  advantage  of 
fluctuations  of  the  market,  the  fluctuations  would  take 
advantage  of  him. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  "  market  value  "  in  this  clause? 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  28 1 

Of  course  the  market  value  of  silver  must  be  quoted  in 
something  other  than  silver.  To  quote  it  in  itself  would 
be  as  absurd  as  saying  the  price  of  a  bushel  of  wheat  is  a 
bushel  of  wheat,  or  to  refine  the  mathematical  axiom, 
"  Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  each  other," 
into  "  The  same  thing  as  equal  to  itself." 

It  is  true  that  silver  coin  is  manufactured  silver,  and 
bullion  raw  material ;  but  in  this  instance  the  cost  of 
manufacture  is  so  uniform  and  so  slight  that  it  need  not 
be  taken  into  account.  Silver  dollars,  where  there  is  no 
legal  restriction  upon  the  amount  which  can  be  coined, 
will  fluctuate  in  value  exactly  with  silver  bullion.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  we  know  that  silver  is  quoted  in  gold.  The 
Senator  from  Indiana  [Mr.  Morton]  interpreted  the  clause 
under  consideration  as  authorizing  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  to  pay  for  silver  bullion  the  gold  price  in  silver 
coin  or  greenbacks.  This  is  the  obvious  meaning  of  the 
language,  but  the  conclusion  is  so  obviously  absurd  that 
I  suppose  we  shall  be  driven  to  seek  some  other  construc- 
tion. 

The  meaning  intended  probably  is  that  the  bullion  shall 
be  paid  for  either  in  gold  coin,  or  in  silver  coin,  or  green- 
backs reduced  to  gold  value.  I  only  pause  to  note  the 
fact  that  we  are  compelled  to  go  back  to  gold  as  the 
world's  standard  of  value  even  in  providing  the  material 
for  silver  coin,  and  to  point  the  moral  that  laws  of  trade 
cannot  be  overruled  by  acts  of  Congress,  and  that  benefi- 
cent legislation  on  the  subject  of  trade  must  be  in  har- 
mony with  these  silent  laws  which  we  can  neither  enact 
nor  repeal. 

In  this  connection  I  may  refer  to  the  amendment  offered 
by  the  Senator  from  Missouri  [Mr.  Bogy],  that  the  "  rela- 
tion between  gold  and  silver  is  hereby  fixed  at  15J-  to  I." 
As  the  weight  of  the  silver  dollar  has  already  been  fixed 
at  412.8  grains  and  of  the  gold  dollar  at  25.8  grains,  the 
amendment  does  not  change  either  of  these  weights,  but 


282  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

only  a  rule  of  arithmetic,  and  makes  the  following  a  legal 
proportion:  412.8:  25.8::   15J:   1. 

The  concluding  clause  of  the  section  gives  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  the  option  to  buy  silver  bullion  out  of  the 
"  bullion  fund,"  but  as  the  sellers  have  an  unlimited  option 
to  sell  under  the  prior  provision  the  Secretary  will  not  have 
an  opportunity  to  exercise  his  until  the  rules  which  govern 
buyers  and  sellers  are  reversed. 

The  theory  of  the  bill  is  to  give  circulation  to  silver, 
but  its  provision  seems  to  me  inadequate  to  accomplish 
the  result.  The  logical  conclusion  of  the  able  and  learned 
speech  of  the  Senator  from  Nevada  is  that  we  should 
make  silver  the  standard  of  value  and  medium  of  ex- 
change. 

I  do  not  underestimate  the  force  of  his  reasoning  in 
favor  of  what  is  called  the  "  double  standard,"  but  no  one 
knows  better  than  he  that  only  one  standard  will  be  in 
use  at  one  time  except  so  far  as  a  specific  use  is  given  by 
law  to  the  other,  as  is  the  case  in  regard  to  gold  with  us 
in  payment  of  customs  and  interest. 

The  superior  convenience  of  "  paper  money  "  will  pre- 
vent the  extensive  circulation  of  silver  coin.  So  long  as 
the  representative  of  value  will  answer  the  same  purpose 
as  value  itself  the  coin  will  not  circulate,  but  only  its  rep- 
resentative. Why  not  issue  the  representative  upon  the 
bullion  without  the  expense  and  delay  of  coinage  ?  The 
Government  might  receive  silver  bullion  in  bars  or  ingots 
and  issue  notes  thereon  in  multiples  of  $5,  redeemable  at 
the  option  of  the  Government  in  silver  coin,  or  upon 
presentation  of  a  stipulated  amount,  in  standard  silver 
bullion. 

As  we  shall  ultimately  reach  the  point  where  paper 
promises  to  pay  silver  will  circulate  as  silver,  why  not  start 
there  and  avoid  the  payment  to  the  owners  of  silver  bul- 
lion a  profit  which  will  accrue  from  the  inability  of  the 
Mint  to  supply  the  demand  for  silver  coin  ?     Why  not 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  283 

look  the  whole  question  in  the  face,  and  adopt  a  bill  which 
will  give  the  theory  of  this  bill  fair  play,  if  the  theory  be 
correct  ? 

The  question  now  arises,  and  it  is  a  pivotal  question, 
wThat  should  be  the  value  of  the  silver  dollar?  How  much 
should  it  express  ?  Shall  it  be  of  the  same  weight  as  when 
we  parted  company  with  it,  twenty-three  years  ago  ?  Shall 
we  assume  that  it  retains  the  same  relation  to  gold,  the  ac- 
cepted international  standard,  that  it  did  then,  though  we 
know  it  does  not  ?  Shall  we  recognize  by  law  the  relation 
which  we  know  exists  to-day  and  make  the  bullion  in  the 
silver  dollar  to  be  coined  equal  to  that  of  the  gold  dollar 
which  is  coined  ?  Shall  we  endeavor  to  ascertain  what 
the  value  of  silver  will  be  when  the  bill  is  passed  which 
shall  make  it  possible  to  use  silver  as  the  basis  of  circula- 
tion, and  establish  upon  that  the  legal  relation  between 
silver  and  gold  ?  If  the  latter,  who  can  determine  or  even 
approximate  that  relation  to-day  ? 

The  Senator  from  Nevada  argued  very  ably  in  favor  of 
the  double  standard,  but  it  was  a  double  standard  that 
started  from  the  same  point,  the  two  lines  running  to- 
gether, and  where  the  variations  of  each  were  supposed 
to  be  corrected  and  equalized  by  the  average  of  relation 
of  each  to  the  other.  That  is,  gold  and  silver  starting 
from  a  common  point,  both  variable  of  changing  relations 
to  each  other,  both  would  touch  a  straight  line  drawn 
from  that  point  oftener  than  either.  This  would  un- 
doubtedly be  true  so  long  as  the  variations  of  both  were 
about  that  line,  each  being  sometimes  above  and  some- 
times below  it.  I  am  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  drawing 
that  straight  line  of  value.  I  anticipate  the  answer  that 
it  can  only  be  fixed  by  first  knowing  the  average  of  differ- 
ences between  gold  and  silver.  But  here  a  new  factor 
comes  in,  the  comparatively  modern  factor,  the  use  of 
credit  as  money,  and  the  impossibility  of  a  correct  solu- 
tion drives  me  back  to  consider  the  necessity  of  the  single 


284  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

standard  by  which  all  values  shall  be  measured,  to  which 
all  quantities  shall  be  reduced. 

The  assimilation  in  value  between  national  notes  and 
silver  to-day  is  an  accident — an  accident  which  cannot  be 
properly  taken  into  account  in  fixing  the  relation  between 
silver  and  gold  in  the  adoption  of  silver  as  the  currency 
of  the  country.  The  Senator  from  Nevada  in  effect  ad- 
mitted this  when  he  expressed  the  opinion  that  the 
adoption  of  silver  for  that  purpose  would  approximate  its 
value  to  our  present  gold  coinage ;  that  is,  bring  back  the 
relation  between  gold  and  silver  to  the  proportion  of  I 
to  16.  The  general  theory  of  his  speech  failed,  I  think, 
to  give  due  weight  to  the  use  of  credit  as  money,  for 
he  assumed  that  by  universal  experience  only  gold  and 
silver  furnished  the  materials  out  of  which  money  could 
properly  be  made.  Granting  this  for  the  purpose  of  the 
argument,  though  by  modern  usage  and  with  vast  labor- 
saving  credit  is  used  as  money  for  ninety-nine  one-hun- 
dredths  of  business,  let  us  consider  what  is  the  philosophy 
of  the  double  standard.  It  is  this :  that  gold  and  silver, 
both  starting  from  the  same  point,  a  common  unit  of  value, 
their  average  differences  after  leaving  that  point  will 
establish  the  line  about  which  values  ought  to  be  deter- 
mined, and  that  practically  for  the  time  being  values 
always  will  be  determined  by  the  factor  which  happens 
to  be  below  that  line.  This  is  a  very  different  question 
from  starting  from  two  points,  one  ten  degrees  below  the 
other,  in  the  hope  that  the  lines  drawn  from  each  will 
eventually  meet  and  then  vary  about  a  mean  line.  Since 
the  time  we  ceased  to  use  the  silver  dollar  it  has  diverged 
from  gold  ten  degrees  ;  shall  we  get  down  to  the  level  of 
the  one  or  up  to  the  level  of  the  other? 

If  we  intend  to  get  down  to  the  level  of  the  silver  dol- 
lar as  established  by  this  bill,  what  shall  we  gain  by  the 
exchange  ?  It  will  cost  us  an  annual  interest  of  at  least 
$r4,ooo,ooo  to  make  the  exchange  of  greenbacks  for  silver. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  285 

If  credit  will  answer  precisely  the  same  purpose  as  silver, 
but  we  must  revert  to  silver  because  it  costs  more,  by  a 
parity  of  reasoning  we  ought  to  abolish  all  labor-saving 
machinery,  for  in  making  exchanges  the  use  of  credit  is 
only  an  improvement  on  that  labor-saving  machinery  of 
which  money  is  the  original  invention.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  supposed  that,  by  the  use  of  promises  to  pay  in 
silver,  silver  itself  will  be  brought  back  to  the  relation  in 
value  it  sustained  to  gold  twenty-three  years  ago,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  show  that  with  less  difficulty  and  expense 
we  can  bring  greenbacks  and  gold  to  a  common  value, 
utilize  all  without  losing  the  special  advantage  of  either. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  expect 
to  inaugurate  the  millennium  by  legislative  enactment ; 
I  do  not  expect  to  reverse  the  law,  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy 
face  shalt  thou  earn  thy  bread  " ;  I  do  not  expect  the 
world  to  move  except  as  the  glacier  moves,  imperceptibly. 
To-day  will  not  be  greatly  better  than  yesterday  or  to- 
morrow than  to-day. 

Whoever  looks  to  great  immediate  improvement  from 
inflation  or  from  instant  return  to  specie  payments  may 
prognosticate  and  give  loose  rein  to  imagination  in  safety, 
for  both  are  impossible ;  the  first  absolutely,  and  the  last 
because  no  living  man  has  the  courage  to  face  its  conse- 
quences. 

I  have  heard  here  and  elsewhere  that  it  is  a  point  of 
honor  to  resume.  Sir,  if  that  be  so,  there  is  nothing  else 
to  be  considered.  If  it  be  a  point  of  honor  to  resume,  it 
is  a  disgrace  to  think  of  consequences.  The  national 
honor  is  above  all  other  considerations ;  when  that  is  in- 
volved, the  nation  that  hesitates  is  lost.  Resumption  in 
itself  is  easy,  more  easy  than  lying. 

Pass  a  bill  to-morrow  that  greenbacks  can  be  funded 
into  fifty-year  4  per  cent,  gold  bonds,  and  the  day  the  bill 
is  signed  gold  and  greenbacks  will  be  of  equal  value.  In 
six  months,  if  any  greenbacks  are  outstanding,  they  will  be 


286  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

at  a  premium  in  gold.  If  national  honor  is  involved  we 
are  disgraced  ;  and  doubly  disgraced  because  a  redemption 
is  so  easy.  It  is  true  we  should  drive  banks  into  liquidation, 
bring  mortgaged  property  to  the  red  flag,  debtors  to  bank- 
ruptcy ;  but  if  the  national  honor  be  in  pawn,  we  should 
redeem  it  though  at  the  price  of  a  million  lives,  and  it  is 
base  huckstering  to  talk  about  loss  of  property.  Perish 
all  considerations  of  pecuniary  loss  to  citizens  in  the 
presence  of  that  greater  loss,  national  honor. 

Pardon  me,  Mr.  President ;  this  is  mere  "  parrot-talk," 
it  is  "  sound  and  fury."  If  the  national  honor  were  at 
stake,  we  should  not  hear  of  it  first  from  the  money- 
changers in  the  temple,  but  from  the  voice  of  the  people 
driving  the  money-changers  out ;  or  to  change  the  simile, 
it  would  be  the  people,  blind  to  all  else,  stalking  by  the 
instinct  of  honor  into  the  temple  and  grasping  its  columns 
to  save  it  or  perish  in  its  ruins  ;  for  where  honor  is  to  be 
saved  nothing  can  be  counted  as  lost.  National  honor  is 
not  a  thing  discovered  in  debate  and  cast  as  make-weight 
into  the  scales  of  argument.  It  is  not  rhetorical  hyper- 
bole. Instinct  feels  it  before  reason  discovers  it.  It  is  a 
thing  for  which  to  stand  against  the  world,  against  the 
world  in  arms ;  supreme  devotion  to  which  would  count 
loss  as  gain  and  would  feel  the  world  dropping  beneath 
its  feet  with  the  ecstasy  which  consoles,  sustains,  trans- 
lates, and  transfigures  the  martyr — the  feeling  which  makes 
man  a  hero,  the  hero  a  god.  I  confess  I  am  impatient 
with  phrases  which  are  used  to  bridge  over  a  want  of 
meaning.  Let  us  look  at  this  question  of  "  honor  "  closely. 
First,  if  any  man  of  honor  honestly  thought  after  close 
communion  this  were  the  question,  to  him  it  would  be  the 
only  question,  and  he  would  not  stand  upon  the  order  of 
resumption,  but  resume  at  once.  Until  this  were  done  he 
would 

"  Make  mad  the  guilty  and  appal  the  free, 
Confound  the  ignorant,  and  amaze  indeed 
The  very  faculties  of  eyes  and  ears." 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  287 

Let  us  look  into  this  question  of  honor.  We  have 
passed  through  a  war  where  the  nation's  honor  and  safety 
were  at  stake.  In  preserving  both  we  spent  all  the  gold 
and  silver  in  the  country  (not  to  mention  some  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  lives  which  were  freely  given  for  the 
national  honor  and  which  are  not  rated  in  money),  and 
went  into  debt  for  some  $2,500,000,000.  A  portion  of  this 
was  borrowed  from  the  people  themselves,  and  there  being 
now  no  gold  and  silver  coin  left,  some  form  of  credit  had 
to  be  used,  as  some  form  of  credit  had  long  before  been 
used,  as  money ;  a  portion  of  this  loan  by  the  people  was 
so  used  from  necessity — that  necessity  which  is  supreme 
law. 

Now,  we  are  compelled  to  speak  of  the  Government 
and  the  people  as  distinct  things ;  but  so  far  as  revenue 
and  debts  are  concerned,  the  revenues  of  the  Government 
are  derived  from  the  people,  the  debts  of  the  Govern- 
ment are  paid  by  the  people,  and  in  this  regard  at  least 
the  Government  is  the  corporation  of  which  the  people 
are  the  stockholders. 

Let  us  suppose  a  corporation  composed  of  one  hundred 
stockholders,  having  exclusive  possession  of  an  island 
cultivated  on  joint  account :  The  corporation  owes  a 
large  debt,  larger  than  it  can  immediately  pay,  one  quarter 
of  which,  say  $50,000,  is  held  by  the  stockholders  in  the 
form  of  certificates  of  indebtedness.  The  directors  say  to 
the  stockholders,  the  corporation  owes  you  this  amount, 
and  we  must  borrow  the  money  and  pay  you.  The  stock- 
holders answer,  these  certificates  we  hold  answer  our  pur- 
pose as  money ;  if  you  borrow  the  money  to  pay  us,  you 
will  have  to  assess  us  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  loan ;  be- 
sides all  this,  our  relations  to  each  other  have  been  adjusted 
on  those  certificates  ;  these  relations  will  be  disturbed  and 
confused  if  they  are  retired  ;  if  they  should  be  retired,  we 
know  we  shall  have  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  loans  which 
absorb  them,  and  that  ten  per  cent,  of  our  number  will 


288  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

then  furnish  us  certificates  of  their  credit,  which  we  shall 
be  compelled  to  use  as  money  precisely  as  the  certificates 
we  now  use.  Then  the  directors  would  answer  their  par- 
rot-talk, we  the  corporation  owe  you,  the  stockholders, 
and  as  a  point  of  honor  we  must  assess  you  to  pay  the 
interest  on  what  we  shall  borrow  to  pay  you. 

Some  one  will  discover  a  fallacy  in  this  illustration, 
because  the  stockholders  do  not  hold  these  certificates  in 
the  exact  proportion  to  their  stock.  To  this  the  answer 
is  that,  among  the  people  who  are  the  stockholders  in  this 
great  corporation,  the  American  Union,  there  is  not  one 
who  holds  a  green-backed  certificate  of  indebtedness  who 
cannot  get  for  it  all  that  it  cost  him  in  any  of  the  ex- 
changes of  business,  in  the  purchase  of  commodities,  pay- 
ment of  debts,  or  by  loan  at  interest.  That  portion  of 
the  question  resolves  itself  to  this :  some  form  of  credit 
will  be  used  as  money.  At  present  the  people  are  using 
their  own  credit  for  that  purpose.  Shall  they  continue  to 
do  that,  or  borrow  the  money  to  pay  themselves,  and  then 
use  the  credit  of  a  part,  organized  into  banks,  in  the  place 
of  the  whole,  and  give  the  banks  the  advantage  to  be  de- 
rived from  such  use  in  place  of  retaining  it  for  the  whole. 
Shall  it  be  national  credit  or  bank  credit  ?  "  That  is  the 
question."  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  think  it  the 
true  policy  of  the  country  to  bring  every  form  of  currency 
used  as  money  to  the  same  standard  of  value ;  and  that 
standard  ought  to  be  the  gold  standard,  because  that  is 
the  one  recognized  by  the  commercial  world,  and  I  believe 
it  will  be  so  recognized,  whatever  our  legislation  may  be ; 
but  I  am  convinced  that  can  be  accomplished  more  easily 
with  national  notes  than  bank-notes. 

I  confess  I  fail  to  perceive  the  important  consequences 
which  were  attributed  by  the  Senator  from  Nevada  to  the 
omission  to  provide  for  the  coinage  of  the  silver  dollar  in 
1873.  If  he  be  right,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
like  Atlas,  bears  the  world  on  its  shoulders. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  289 

I  believe  I  have  a  high  appreciation  of  the  responsibili- 
ties of  public  office,  but  I  have  always  consoled  myself 
with  the  reflection  that  the  mighty  stream  of  human  life 
and  activity  would  flow  on  its  great  channel  despite  any 
accidental  mistake  of  ours. 

Why,  sir,  the  whole  silver  coinage  of  the  United  States 
mints  from  1821  to  1873  was  less  than  $140,000,000.  For 
more  than  twenty  years  the  silver  dollar  had  not  been  in 
use  in  the  United  States  and  was  not  known  outside  the 
collections  of  curious  coins.  To  say  that  the  value  of 
silver  and  the  monetary  market  throughout  the  world  and 
the  conditions  of  all  values  and  all  contracts  was  disturbed 
by  an  omission  to  provide  for  doing  that  which  we  had 
long  ceased  to  do,  may  be  true  to  that  faculty,  the  imagi- 
nation, which  can  construct  the  known  out  of  the  un- 
known, but  is  at  least  doubtful  to  the  understanding, 
which  can  only  reason  upon  facts.  And,  sir,  if  we  had 
authorized  its  coinage  from  that  day  to  the  first  day  of 
this  month,  the  only  use  we  could  have  put  it  to  would 
have  been  to  receive  it  for  customs  and  pay  on  our  funded 
debt.     Of  this  I  shall  speak  hereafter. 

The  Senator's  theory,  if  I  correctly  understand,  is  that 
embraced  by  the  amendments  of  the  Senator  from  Mis- 
souri, which  would  result  in  the  use  of  silver  alike  in  place 
of  greenbacks  in  general  business,  and  of  gold  in  payment 
of  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  funded  debt.  The 
plan  is  not  without  its  advantages.  One  is,  it  would  con- 
tinue existing  contracts  substantially  upon  the  same  basis 
on  which  they  were  formed.  This,  however,  would  be 
destroyed  if  the  hypothesis  of  the  Senator  from  Nevada 
be  correct  that  the  value  of  silver  would  be  enhanced  by 
the  new  use  created  for  it.  Granting  it,  however,  for  the 
moment  to  the  full,  what  is  the  advantage  in  this  par- 
ticular of  exchanging  one  system  for  another  at  a  large 
expense,  simply  for  maintaining  relations  which  will  be 
equally  maintained    under   the  present   system?      Is  it 


29O  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

alleged  that  the  advantage  will  accrue  in  that  silver  will 
appreciate  to  the  gold  value  ?  National  notes  can  be 
made  to  do  so  with  far  more  ease  and  certainty.  Is  it 
argued  that  we  shall  get  the  benefit  of  the  double  stand- 
ard ?  The  true  philosophy  of  the  double  standard  is 
that  the  two  metals  should  start  with  a  common  unit  of 
value,  that  their  variations  might  mutually  correct  each 
other. 

To  start  with  one  thirteen  degrees  below  the  other  is 
simply  to  adopt  the  lower  standard  and  to  abandon  the 
only  benefit — mutual  corrections — which  is  claimed  for 
the  double  standard.  It  is  not  the  "  double  standard  " 
in  any  proper  sense  where  all  offices  of  both  must  from 
the  nature  of  things  be  performed  by  one. 

Is  it  argued  that  with  silver  currency  we  shall  escape 
the  bug-bear  of  inflation  that  haunts  the  timid  mind? 
Silver  currency  cannot  be  inflated,  because  it  costs  labor 
to  get  silver.  Costs  whom  and  how  much  ?  The  man 
who  does  get  it ;  a  dollar  in  service  to  get  as  much  as  will 
pass  for  a  dollar.  So  long  as  it  costs  a  dollar  in  service 
to  get  a  national  note  for  a  dollar,  there  is  no  more  dan- 
ger of  inflation  in  one  system  than  the  other.  This  much 
for  the  substitution  of  silver  for  national  notes  as  currency 
in  the  general  business  of  the  country  on  the  basis  of 
value  proposed  in  the  bill. 

Let  us  examine  for  a  few  moments  the  theory  of  sub- 
stituting silver  for  gold  in  the  payment  of  the  principal 
and  interest  of  the  funded  debt.  If  we  have  a  right  to 
do  this,  it  is  purely  technical.  At  the  time  when  we 
agreed  by  law  to  pay  principal  and  interest  in  coin,  gold 
was  cheaper  than  the  silver  which  it  is  now  proposed  to 
pay,  and  that  was  the  reason  of  our  election  to  pay  in 
gold.  At  that  time  the  silver  dollar  which  we  now  pro- 
pose to  pay  had  no  existence  in  fact ;  it  was  only  a  legal 
possibility,  a  very  "  barren  ideality,"  for  it  had  passed  out 
of  memory  and  did  not  enter  the  imagination ;  it  was  as 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  29 1 

obsolete  then  in  fact  as  it  is  now  in  law.  The  revenues 
which  were  set  apart  for  the  payment  of  this  debt  were 
collected  in  gold,  for  there  was  no  silver  with  which  to 
pay  them,  and  no  one  contemplated  there  would  be  any. 
The  silver  dollar  was  not  so  much  eliminated  from  the 
law  as  it  dropped  out  of  it.  What  shall  we  gain  now  by 
availing  ourselves  of  a  technical  legal  right  to  pay  in  silver 
that  which  we  elected  to  pay  in  gold  when  it  was  our  in- 
terest to  do  so,  and  which  election  has  determined  the 
market  value  of  our  bonds  at  home  and  abroad,  the  price 
at  which  they  are  bought  and  sold  ? 

We  shall  scale  down  our  funded  debt  thirteen  per  cent., 
say  $200,000,000.  But  if  the  argument  be  correct  that  the 
use  of  silver  for  all  purposes  of  money  will  bring  its  value 
on  the  basis  of  the  proposed  coinage  to  that  of  gold,  then 
shall  we  take  nothing  by  our  device,  for  Banquo  we  shall 
have  filed  our  mind. 

What  shall  we  lose?  We  shall  lose  the  high  estimation 
of  public  opinion,  which  is  the  world's  conscience.  We 
shall  lose  that  fine  sense  of  honor  which  is  the  soul  of 
credit,  and  which  it  is  even  more  profitable  to  the  debtor  to 
observe  than  to  the  creditor  to  exact.  In  the  distinction 
between  a  moral  obligation  and  a  legal  right  we  shall 
place  ourselves  upon  the  lower  plane. 

A  nation  that  owes  vast  sums,  and  whose  policy  it  is  to 
use  its  credit  at  the  lowest  rate  of  interest,  cannot  afford 
even  to  seem  to  seek  a  temporary  advantage  by  availing 
itself  of  a  technical  right. 

By  keeping  upon  the  high  plane  of  moral  obligation, 
by  maintaining  our  credit  to  a  nice  sense  of  honor  in  the 
forum  of  the  conscience  of  the  public  opinion  of  man- 
kind, we  shall  not  only  honor  ourselves  and  our  insti- 
tutions, but  we  shall  receive  a  temporal  reward  far 
exceeding  any  the  tempter  can  offer.  By  so  doing  we 
shall  be  able  to  convert  our  funded  debt  into  a  security 
(and  there  is  a  world  of  meaning  in  the  word  security ;  it 


292  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

does  not  mean  insecurity),  into  a  security  bearing  an 
interest  of  three  per  cent,  per  annum.  If  we  begin  to 
palter  in  a  double  sense,  and  keep  the  word  of  promise 
to  the  ear  only,  we  shall  lose  the  opportunity  to  save 
quadruple  our  questionable  gains. 

Something  has  been  said  of  the  Shylock  spirit  of  the 
creditor  which  exacts  the  pound  of  flesh.  The  phrase  is 
somewhat  musty.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
heroism  of  Antonio  is  shown  in  his  willingness  to  submit 
to  the  penalty  of  his  bond  as  he  understood  it  as  well  as 
the  rapacity  of  Shylock  in  exacting  it  ;  and  it  is  only  an 
evidence  of  a  sad  tendency  in  human  nature  that  the 
rapacity  is  immortalized,  the  heroism  is  forgot.  If 
Antonio  had  promised  to  pay  ducats — elected  to  pay 
gold  ducats  when  that  was  his  rightful  advantage,  after- 
ward sought  to  discharge  the  debt  in  silver  when  he  found 
a  profit  therein,  the  world's  verdict  in  the  case  of 
Shylock  vs.  Antonio  would  have  been  different ;  Portia's 
legal  quibble  as  amicus  curice  would  hardly  have  been 
justified,  her  divine  appeal  for  mercy  sadly  out  of  place. 

Sir,  there  is  one  rule  of  morals  which  can  seldom  mis- 
lead :  in  a  doubtful  question  which  involves  your  own 
interest,  give  the  doubt  against  yourself.  The  nation 
which  observes  this  rule  will  find  its  reward  exceeding 
great  in  this  world  as  certainly  as  the  man  who  does  will 
in  the  world  to  come. 

I  have  reached  certain  conclusions  which  I  shall  state, 
not  in  their  logical  or  natural  order,  but  in  that  which  is 
most  convenient  for  my  purpose  : 

First.  That  the  funded  debt  of  the  Government 
should  be  paid  in  gold. 

Second.  That  the  "  double  standard  "  requires  at  the 
time  of  its  adoption  a  common  unit  of  value,  and  to 
avail  ourselves  of  its  supposed  benefits  we  must  increase 
the  silver  dollar. 

Third.  That  all  forms  of  currency  in  use  at  any  given 
time  ought  to  be  equivalent  in  value. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  293 

Fourth.  That  gold  by  the  common  consent  of  the 
commercial  world  is  the  ultimate  standard  by  which  all 
values  are  measured. 

Fifth.  That  some  form  of  credit  is  now  and  always 
will  be  used  as  money  in  every  civilized  commercial 
country. 

Sixth.  That  with  us  we  ought  to  use  the  national 
credit  directly  in  the  form  of  national  notes  and  not  lend 
it  to  the  banks  for  that  purpose,  and  that  we  can  and 
ought  as  a  matter  of  wise  policy  to  make  national  notes 
as  good  as  gold. 

It  is  only  the  last  proposition  which  I  intend  further  to 
discuss,  and  I  trust  I  shall  be  pardoned  if  in  the  hurry  of 
preparation  I  sometimes  use  language  and  illustrations 
which  I  have  used  upon  another  occasion. 

I  believe  our  funded  debt  can  be  reduced  to  the  lowest 
possible  rate  of  interest  in  the  United  States  notes  appre- 
ciated to  the  gold  standard  and  maintained  there  by  the 
use  of  an  interconvertible  bond  the  interest  upon  which 
is  payable  in  gold. 

I  know  the  term  "  interconvertible  bond"  is  wont  to 
fright  us  from  our  propriety.  To  some  it  suggests  the 
supernal,  to  others  the  infernal ;  to  some  it  is  a  badge 
of  repudiation,  to  others  the  harbingers  of  the  millennium  ; 
to  some  it  is  a  charm  to  exorcise  every  devil,  to  others 
a  very  devil  which  no  exorcism  can  lay.  To  me  it  is  a 
harmless  instrument  which  cannot  accomplish  miracles, 
but  does  furnish  the  best  practical  solution  of  the  cur- 
rency question.  There  is  no  easy  road  out  of  the  present 
depressed  state  of  our  business  and  industry.  It  is  the 
necessary  result  of  our  history  ;  it  is  one  of  the  after- 
effects of  the  war  and  as  inevitable  as  its  bloody  foot- 
prints. It  is  the  mortgage  left  on  our  estate  by  the  war. 
War  is  destruction — destruction  of  property  as  well  as  life. 
Imagine  a  million  of  men  in  this  country  idle  for  four 
years  ;  how  vast  the  loss  to  production.  But  a  million  of 
men,  all  their  energies  perverted  for  four  years  from  pro- 


294  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

duction,  to  destruction,  when  often  the  act  of  a  moment  can 
destroy  the  work  of  years,  who  shall  estimate  the  difference 
or  calculate  the  loss  ?  But  the  business  of  the  Northern 
States  was  never  more  prosperous  than  during  the  war. 
Why  ?  The  war,  though  it  was  the  business  of  destruction, 
was  still  a  business,  giving  employment  to  vast  numbers 
of  men  and  stimulating  every  industrial  pursuit  into  the 
highest  activity  to  supply  the  demand  created  by  the  war. 
The  war  was  a  great  fire,  into  which  every  man  was 
throwing  his  goods  at  an  extravagant  price,  which  the 
nation  borrowed  the  money  to  pay.  Revelling  in  the 
riches  of  the  pay,  we  did  not  pause  to  reflect  that  we,  the 
people,  were  the  nation,  and  must  pay  the  debt  ourselves. 
Our  riches  were  like  fairy  gold.  We  squandered  our 
inheritance,  borrowed  of  the  world,  and  discounted  our 
future  at  usurious  interest.  No  man  is  so  prodigal  as  the 
borrower  who  does  not  think  of  pay-day,  none  so  poor 
as  he  when  pay-day  comes. 

But  our  prosperity  continued  years  after  the  close  of 
the  war.  Yes,  we  seemed  to  be  rich  on  the  very  waste 
of  the  war  ;  the  evidences  of  our  own  indebtedness  were 
counted  as  riches.  We,  the  nation,  owed  us,  the  people  ; 
the  fairy  gold  had  not  vanished.  There  was  one  ele- 
ment of  prosperity  more  real  while  it  lasted,  an  active 
demand  for  labor  to  supply  the  vacuum  created  by  the 
war.  In  the  daze  of  the  hour  prices  were  factitious, 
extravagance  the  habit,  credit  inflated,  and  labor  wasted 
in  unprofitable  enterprise. 

But  there  is  no  such  inexorable  creditor  as  time,  and 
pay-day  has  come.  Seven  hundred  and  fifty  million 
dollars  collected  in  taxes  every  year  is  a  burden  upon  the 
industries  of  this  people  which  no  magic  can  conjure 
away.  There  are  those  who  fancy  we  are  suffering  from 
over-production  ;  as  if  there  could  be  too  great  a  produc- 
tion of  what  is  necessary  to  the  sustenance,  the  comfort, 
and  enjoyment  of  life,  while  vast  numbers  are  in  want. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  295 

Over-production  means  inability  of  consumers,  and  every 
one  is  a  consumer.  It  is  not  too  much  capital  at  one  end, 
but  too  little  at  the  other.  We  complain  that  capital 
does  not  seek  new  enterprise.  How  can  it,  successfully, 
when  taxation  is  higher  than  interest  in  many  other 
countries.  I  am  not  of  those  who  believe  that  relief  can 
come  from  all  this  except  through  patience,  labor,  and 
economy.  Through  these  I  know  it  can,  and  there  is  no 
other  way  opened  up. 

What  would  a  man  or  a  corporation  do  when  embar- 
rassed by  debt  ?  One  thing,  certainly  :  reduce  the  inter- 
est to  the  lowest  possible  rate.  A  nation  may  use  its 
credit  with  greater  advantage  than  an  individual  or  cor- 
poration. It  is  perpetual,  and  the  markets  of  the  world 
are  open  to  it  ?  What  species  of  loan  will  command  the 
lowest  rate  of  interest  ?  A  long  loan,  on  account  of  its 
permanence  as  an  investment,  and  a  loan  on  call,  by 
reason  of  its  convertibility  at  pleasure.  The  national 
bond  which  would  unite  these  qualities  in  the  highest 
degree  would  be  perpetual,  but  convertible  at  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  holder. 

The  English  consol  is  a  perpetual  3  per  cent,  worth  95 
per  cent,  and  practically  as  steady  as  gold.  The  differ- 
ence between  3  and  5  per  cent,  on  our  national  debt  com- 
pounded for  thirty-five  years  would  pay  it  off.  Visionary 
as  it  may  appear,  that  is  one  effect  which  I  believe  can 
be  accomplished  by  a  bond  perpetual  in  terms,  interest 
payable  in  gold,  and  convertible  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
holder  into  United  States  notes. 

How  can  such  a  bond  be  put  upon  the  market  success- 
fully? By  making  greenbacks  and  bank-notes  now  in 
circulation  convertible  into  it,  and  when  it  advances  to 
par  in  gold  redeem  with  it  the  outstanding  6  per  cents. 
But  if  it  does  not  advance  to  par?  All  legislation  is  to 
some  extent  experimental,  and  this  will  cost  nothing;  our 
5  per  cent,  loan  was  offered  long  before  it  was  all  taken. 


296  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  monetary  system  of  a  country,  like  all  its  institu- 
tions, is  far  more  the  result  of  its  experience  of  the  acci- 
dents and  exigencies  of  its  history  than  of  any  deliberate 
predetermined  plan.  Universal  experience  has  demon- 
strated certain  fundamental  principles,  but  the  methods  of 
their  application  must  vary  with  circumstances.  No  one 
in  this  country  advocates  the  establishment  of  an  insti- 
tution like  the  Bank  of  England,  however  wise  its 
adaptation  may  be  to  the  wants  and  interests  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  The  Bank  of  Amsterdam  has  sub- 
served a  most  useful  purpose,  but  no  one  proposes  to 
copy  it. 

The  great  body  of  our  circulating  medium  consists  of 
greenbacks  and  bank-notes.  In  what  respect  is  the  latter 
superior  to  the  former?  I  admit  that  our  present  system 
of  free  national  banking  is  the  best  that  we  have  ever  had. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  best  system  of  banks  of  issue  that  can 
be  devised.  It  is  incomparably  better  than  that  which 
made  shinplasters,  wildcat,  red-dog,  and  blue-pup  familiar 
and  significant  names  for  paper-money  ;  when  a  bank- 
note caught  astray  over  a  State  line  was  arrested  as  a 
trespasser ;  when  a  counterfeit-detector  and  bank-note 
list  were  as  indispensable  to  every  counting-house  as  a 
cash-book  or  diary ;  when  exchange  on  New  York  could 
reach  10  percent,  premium  in  the  Western  States  without 
an  appreciable  difference  in  the  solvency  of  the  banks  ; 
when  a  man  going  from  St.  Louis  to  Boston  would 
pass  through  as  many  systems  of  currency  as  States,  and 
sometimes  find  a  State  system  checkered  with  county 
lines  like  a  schoolboy's  atlas,  and  his  "  money  of  account" 
in  the  morning  would  be  of  no  account  in  the  evening. 
Our  present  system  is  infinitely  better,  because  it  is  based 
upon  better  credit.  There  is  absolute  security  for  the  ul- 
timate redemption  of  national  bank-notes.  Redemption 
of  what  ?  The  notes  of  the  United  States.  It  is  not  the 
credit  of  the  banks  which  makes  their  notes  good  and 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  297 

gives  them  uniform  value  wherever  they  circulate,  but 
the  credit  of  the  Government. 

Now,  in  political  economy  as  well  as  in  mechanics,  all 
unnecessary  machinery  is  a  loss  of  effective  power.  Fric- 
tion is  to  be  avoided  as  much  in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
Examine  the  practical  working  of  our  banking  system 
and  see  if  there  be  not  some  unnecessary  machinery  and 
waste  of  power. 

The  Government  could  only  have  two  objects  in 
issuing  greenbacks  :  first  to  obtain  a  loan  without  interest ; 
second,  to  furnish  a  form  of  credit  which  should  circulate 
as  money. 

A  national  bank  is  organized ;  it  deposits  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  in  United  States  bonds  and  five 
thousand  dollars  in  greenbacks  in  the  United  States 
Treasury,  and  receives  $90,000  in  bank-notes  signed  by 
the  United  States  Treasurer,  upon  which  it  agrees  to  pay 
the  United  States  1  per  cent,  per  annum.  In  plain  Eng- 
lish, what  is  this  but  the  bank  borrowing  the  credit  of 
the  Government  for  1  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  leaving 
security,  with  a  fair  margin,  upon  which  security 
the  Government  pays  the  bank  5  or  6  per  cent,  per  annum  ? 
That  is,  the  bank  pays  the  Government  upon  one  form  of 
its  credit  1  per  cent.,  and  the  Government  pays  the  bank 
upon  another  form  of  its  credit  5  or  6  per  cent,  in  the 
same  transaction — and  that  not  for  one  year,  but  while 
the  bank  charter  continues. 

Now  if  the  first  object,  a  loan  without  interest,  controls 
the  Government  in  issuing  the  greenback,  that  is  defeated 
by  this  operation  to  the  extent  of  all  bank  circulation. 

If  the  second,  it  is  unnecessary,  for  the  bank-note 
never  can  be  better  than  the  greenback  in  which  it  is 
payable. 

You  will  observe  I  am  speaking  of  the  condition  of 
things  which  exists,  and  not  what  would  be  if  the  green- 
back were  eliminated. 


298  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Now  suppose,  for  any  cause,  the  bank  goes  into  liqui- 
dation. The  Government  sells  the  securities,  and,  after 
redeeming  the  bills  of  the  bank  in  Government  bills 
(for  which  as  yet  there  is  no  plan  of  redemption),  pays 
over  the  residue  to  the  stockholders.  All  this  circum- 
locution, from  the  first  establishment  of  the  bank  to  its 
liquidation,  to  get  back  to  the  United  States  note,  which 
could  have  just  as  well  been  issued  directly  in  the  first 
instance. 

If  it  be  necessary,  by  all  means  let  us  put  fifth  wheels 
on  our  coach,  devise  engines  to  drive  engines,  invent  a 
grate  to  warm  the  fire,  and  grease  water  that  it  may 
run  down  hill ! 

It  is  constantly  said  that  the  Government  ought  not  to 
engage  in  the  business  of  banking.  It  is  engaged  in  the 
"  business  of  banking,"  and  it  undertakes  to  wind  up 
banks  and  to  administer  upon  their  assets  in  a  manner  as 
unprofitable  as  unnecessary.  It  maintains  a  redemption 
agency  for  bank  bills  at  the  expense  of  the  Treasury. 
It  receives  deposits  and  issues  certificates.  It  issues  bank 
bills  to  banks,  requires  reports  from  banks,  regulates  the 
reserves  of  banks,  examines  the  affairs  of  banks,  and  keeps 
that  kind  of  surveillance  over  banks  which  bank  officers 
and  stockholders  are  supposed  to  do.  It  does  everything 
pertaining  to  banking  which  a  bank  might,  could,  would,  or 
should  do,  except  discount  bills  and  sell  exchange,  which, 
in  addition  to  receiving  deposits,  are  the  only  things  a 
bank  should  do,  and  which  no  one  proposes  the  Govern- 
ment shall  do. 

The  issuance  of  bills  of  credit  to  circulate  as  money  is 
not  a  function  of  banking,  but  of  Government,  and  no 
bank  or  individual  is  permitted  to  exercise  it  under  any 
wise  policy  except  by  the  consent  and  delegation  of 
Government.  That  is  evidenced  by  the  care  we  exercise 
to  guard  the  privilege.  It  is  a  privilege,  and  that  is  an 
odious  part  of  it.     True,,  it  is  a  free  privilege,  but  only 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  299 

free  to  those  whose  circumstances  or  ability  enable  them 
to  avail  themselves  of   it. 

If  the  present  system  owes  its  confessed  superiority  to 
the  fact  (as  it  confessedly  does)  that  it  is  based  upon  the 
Government  credit,  why  not  go  one  step  further  and  use 
the  Government  credit  directly  in  place  of  lending  it  at 
1  per  cent,  (out  of  which  the  expenses  of  the  Government's 
connection  with  banks  must  be  deducted)  and  paying  5 
or  6. 

If  one  quarter  the  thought  and  attention  had  been  given 
to  improving  the  national  currency  that  have  been  to 
dovetailing  into  it  the  bank-note  and  maintaining  and 
reconciling  a  system  artificially  complicated,  the  greenback 
would  have  been  at  par  with  gold  long  ago. 

It  seems  to  be  apprehended  on  the  one  hand  that  with- 
out banks  of  issue  there  would  be  a  deficiency  of  cur- 
rency— that  is,  that  it  is  necessary  to  pay  some  one  to 
keep  up  a  supply  of  currency — and,  on  the  other,  that  but 
for  the  intervention  of  banks  the  Government  would 
"  inflate  "  the  currency.  Suppose  the  Government  to-day 
could  substitute  greenbacks  for  the  bank-notes  in  circu- 
lation,— the  volume  of  currency  would  be  the  same,  the 
quality  no  worse.  Do  you  fear  there  would  be  a  failure 
of  the  necessary  machinery  for  the  proper  distribution  of 
currency  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  people  and  for  the 
accommodation  of  business?  Have  the  receiving  of 
deposits,  drawing  exchange,  and  lending  of  money  sud- 
denly become  so  unprofitable  or  irksome  a  business  that 
no  one  will  engage  in  it  without  the  added  premium  of 
a  power  to  issue  money? 

Suppose  the  substitution  made,  and  to-morrow  the 
currency  should  be  made  convertible  into  a  perpetual  3 
per  cent,  gold  bond,  would  not  that  improve  the  currency 
to  the  value  of  such  a  bond  ?  Make  the  bond  interconver- 
tible with  currency ;  will  not  that  give  it  additional  value, 
by  making  it  the  receptacle  of  the  money  of  estates  of 


300  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

decedents  and  bankrupts  under  administration  and  giving 
it  a  power  of  absorbing  money  temporarily  idle  but 
wanted  "  on  call "  ?  Is  there  an  apprehension  that  its 
absorbing  qualities  would  become  so  great  that  the  cur- 
rency of  the  country  would  rush  into  it  and  disappear 
from  circulation  ?  That  could  only  happen  when  such  a 
bond  was  worth  a  premium  in  gold ;  then  the  gold  of  the 
world  would  seek  it  as  an  investment,  until  our  6  per  cent, 
bonds  could  be  exchanged  for  threes,  a  result  I  could 
contemplate  with  very  considerable  philosophic  com- 
posure, even  if  it  were  nearer  than  I  anticipate  ;  while 
the  catastrophe  of  an  entire  disappearance  of  our  currency 
would  be  effectually  prevented  by  the  option  of  the 
Government  to  redeem  it  in  gold.  When  that  period 
arrives  men  will  take  their  gold  to  the  United  States 
Treasury  and  exchange  it  for  Government  notes  on  ac- 
count of  their  superior  convenience. 

Very  seriously,  I  do  believe  a  3  per  cent,  interconvertible 
gold  bond  would  appreciate  to  par,  carrying  the  green- 
back with  it  with  reasonable  rapidity  and  certainty ;  that 
it  would  eventually  take  up  all  our  bonds  ;  that,  as  such 
a  security  would  for  many  purposes  be  more  valuable  at 
home  than  abroad,  it  would  be  held  in  larger  proportions 
at  home  than  our  present  bonds  are — large  enough  to 
afford  an  ample  basis  for  any  expansion  of  currency,  if  any 
should  become  necessary. 

Under  such  a  system,  if  more  currency  were  necessary, 
in  place  of  the  circumlocution  of  lending  Government 
credit  to  banks,  the  capital  which  now  organizes  banks 
would  take  Government  bonds  to  the  Treasury,  get  notes 
for  them,  with  the  absolute  certainty  that  when,  for  any 
cause,  the  notes  came  home,  they  would  find  the  exact 
security  left  in  pledge  for  them.  Government  promises 
under  all  circumstances  would  be  fulfilled  to  the  letter. 

In  place  of  accumulating  gold  in  the  Treasury  to  redeem, 
enhancing  its  value  by  a  large  sudden  demand,  creating 


POLITICAL   LIFE,  3OI 

an  artificial  stringency  of  money — the  Treasury  hoarding 
gold  upon  the  one  hand  and  the  people  hoarding  currency 
upon  the  other  to  get  the  gold  when  the  door  of  the 
Treasury  is  opened — we  should  redeem  the  United  States 
notes  with  an  instrument  which  would  be  a  draft  at  sight 
upon  the  treasury  of  the  world,  an  open  sesame  to  the 
universal  cash-box. 

What  an  anomaly  it  is :  a  4  per  cent,  forty-year  bond 
is  worth  par.  in  gold  throughout  the  civilized  world ;  a 
United  States  note  is  worth  13  per  cent,  less  than  gold  at 
home.  This  anomaly,  in  my  judgment,  is  owing  to  our 
system  of  banks  of  issue. 

It  is  urged  with  plausibility  that  the  interconvertible 
system  would  enable  operators  "  for  a  corner  "  to  retire 
large  amounts  of  currency  from  circulation  and  create  an 
artificial  dearth.  The  objection  is  more  seeming  than 
real.  Such  operations  seldom  extend  their  effects  beyond 
stock-gambling.  The  ease  with  which  the  vacuum  could 
be  filled  under  the  interconvertible  system  would  greatly 
prevent  the  attempt.  Every  day  we  should  know  the 
exact  amount  added  to  or  withdrawn  from  circulation  ; 
and  this  publicity  would  make  a  corner  almost  impossible. 
We  should  have  a  signal-bureau  to  predict  a  financial 
storm  with  infallible  accuracy.  It  would  be  more  easy  to 
create  a  stringency  on  the  banking  plan  whenever  we  reach 
any  system  of  specie  payment  by  investing  in  British 
consols.  But  is  the  banking  system  so  perfect  that  it  can 
discover  so  small  a  flaw  as  this  and  call  it  fatal?  Are 
bank-notes  subject  to  no  vicissitudes? 

While  human  nature  continues  as  it  is,  with  its  thirst 
for  sudden  riches,  its  spirit  of  speculation,  its  moral  epi- 
demics, its  periods  of  elation  and  depression,  we  shall  be 
subject  to  financial  crises  at  the  meeting  of  ingoing  and 
outgoing  tides.  Even  bank  officers  are  not  steel  against 
human  emotions  or  proof  against  moral  epidemics,  the 
excitements  of  hope  and  the  despondency  of  fear.    When 


302  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

revulsions  come,  as  come  they  will,  what  can  banks  do  to 
mitigate  them  ?  The  danger  to  banks  is  from  all  sides. 
Their  depositors  will  be  clamorous  for  pay,  their  note- 
holders for  gold,  their  debtors  never  so  little  able  to  assist 
them.  They  must  contract  from  every  quarter,  add 
calamity  to  misfortune,  and  redouble  the  ruin  which  their 
notes  redeemable  in  gold  have  made  them  powerless  to 
withstand.  In  no  American  system  of  banking  we  have 
ever  had  or  shall  have,  can  any  bank  in  the  most  pros- 
perous  times  redeem  its  obligations  except  by  going  into 
liquidation.  Albert  Gallatin  truly  said :  "  The  bank- 
note is  a  direct  promise  to  pay  on  the  part  of  the  maker, 
with  an  implied  promise  never  to  ask  payment  on  the 
part  of  the  receiver." 

The  interconvertible  system  has  been  called  inflation. 
Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  truth.  Under  it  no  one 
can  put  a  dollar  in  circulation  without  depositing  security 
for  a  dollar.  In  that  it  resembles  and  has  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  national-bank  system.  Under  the  na- 
tional-bank system  a  bank  desiring  more  currency  deposits 
United  States  bonds  in  the  Treasury,  gets  currency,  and 
draws  interest  on  the  bonds  deposited  ;  under  the  inter- 
convertible system,  whoever  wants  more  currency  must 
deposit  bonds  just  as  the  banker  now  does,  but,  unlike  the 
banker,  he  would  draw  no  interest.  Whatever  defects 
are  chargeable  to  the  latter  system,  inflation  is  not  one 
of  them.  But,  under  the  banking  system,  whatever  profit 
there  is  on  circulation  is  an  inducement  to  inflation ;  to 
an  unwise  expansion  of  credit.  From  the  very  nature  of 
the  system  of  banks  of  issue  expansion  and  contraction 
are  periodical  and  ruinous.  Banks  only  issue  currency 
for  the  sake  of  the  profit  on  the  circulation ;  they  will 
inflate  it  whenever  it  can  be  done  with  profit,  and  must 
contract  whenever  their  safety  is  menaced.  They  con- 
tribute alike  to  the  excitements  of  speculative  periods 
and  to  the  depressions  which  follow. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  303 

Dean  Swift  by  his  Draper  letters  prevented  the  cir- 
culation in  Ireland  of  a  copper  coin  authorized  by  act  of 
Parliament  and  certified  by  Sir  Isaac  Newton  to  be  of  the 
weight  and  fineness  required  by  law,  because  the  privilege 
of  making  it  had  been  granted  to  a  private  party.  The 
idea  of  farming  out  to  banks  the  privilege  of  supplying 
the  people  with  currency  is  an  absurdity  whose  enormity 
is  only  concealed  by  custom.  It  is  reconciled  to  the 
habits  of  men,  not  to  their  convictions. 

There  are  many  who  advocate  the  funding  of  a  fixed 
amount  of  greenbacks  per  month,  until  by  a  reduction  of 
their  volume  they  should  be  appreciated  to  gold.  That 
volume  would  vary  with  the  necessities  of  business  ;  it 
would  vary  with  the  seasons  from  day  to  day,  be  influ- 
enced by  the  "  moving  of  the  crops,"  and  all  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  business.  It  would  at  all  times  be  controlled  by 
the  banks  who  would  share  with  the  Government  the 
privilege  of  issuing  currency.  It  is  a  mechanical  method 
of  feeling  the  way  up  to  the  specie  point  by  a  series  of 
experiments  instead  of  rising  there  through  natural  causes. 
In  what  respect  is  it  superior  to  the  interconvertible  plan 
with  a  bond  payable  in  gold  ?  The  bond  it  offers  bears 
a  higher  rate  of  interest.  It  would  compel  the  Treasury 
to  keep  a  large  gold  reserve,  and  enable  the  banks  grad- 
ually (and  I  suppose  this  to  be  the  merit  of  the  plan  in 
the  minds  of  its  advocates)  to  convert  the  United  States 
notes  into  gold  and  monopolize  the  whole  field  of  cir- 
culation. 

One  thing  is  certain,  under  any  system  either  the 
greenback  or  the  bank-note  will  disappear  from  our 
circulation.  No  arbitrary  fixing  of  the  amount  of  green- 
backs will  or  ought  to  keep  them  in  circulation  as  mere 
tenders  to  bank-notes.  We  shall  eventually  have  one 
system  or  the  other.  If  we  have  the  banking  system, 
there  will  be  no  real  resumption,  no  holding  of  gold  as  a 
reserve  which  gives  an  absolute  assurance  of  payment  on 


304  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

presentation — the  credit  of  the  bank-note  will  still  depend 
upon  the  credit  of  the  Government  behind  it.  There 
will  be  a  great  many  banks  of  issue  located  at  points 
distant  from  business  centres,  and  not  of  the  most  con- 
venient access.  The  profit  on  circulation  given  to  the 
banks  will  be  a  premium  offered  for  inflation,  and  a  temp- 
tation to  it,  which  even  the  superior  human  nature  of  the 
average  bank  director  will  not  always  resist. 

Again,  it  is  urged  that  under  the  interconvertible  sys- 
tem the  Government  will  become  a  borrower  of  the  idle 
capital  of  the  country.  Why,  sir,  the  Government  is  a 
borrower  now  to  the  amount  of  more  than  $2,000,000,000, 
and  it  can  certainly  be  no  disadvantage  to  transfer  any 
portion  of  this  loan  from  the  idle  capital  of  Europe  to 
that  of  this  country  and  from  a  higher  to  a  lower  rate  of 
interest.  But  it  is  a  strange  misuse  of  terms  to  call  the 
conversion  of  the  greenback,  which  is  one  form  of  Gov- 
ernment obligation,  into  a  bond,  which  is  another  form  of 
obligation,  borrowing.  That  ought  to  be  the  right  of 
the  holder  of  the  greenback  if  the  Government  does  not 
redeem  in  gold.  Equally  strange  is  it  to  call  that  a  loan 
by  the  Government  if  the  holder  of  the  United  States 
bond  converts  an  obligation  which  bears  interest  to  one 
which  does  not.  The  whole  theory  of  the  plan  is  to 
organize  the  credit  of  the  Government  so  that  the  interest 
paid  shall  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  possible  amount ; 
that  a  creditor  of  the  Government  shall  at  all  times  have 
the  option  of  taking  a  bond  which  bears  interest,  or  notes 
without  interest  that  will  circulate  as  money  ;  and  that 
the  bond  and  the  note  alike  shall  appreciate  to  par  with 
gold  with  as  much  rapidity  as  is  equitable  to  existing 
contracts ;  and  that  we  shall  have  one  currency,  good  for 
every  purpose,  bearing  one  device  known  of  all  men  ;  not 
representing  a  privilege,  but  the  credit  of  the  nation ; 
not  regulated  in  bank  parlors,  but  by  the  necessities  of 
the  time ;    not  an  idle  promise  to  pay  if  you  do  not  want 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  305 

payment  and  a  broken  one  if  you  do,  but  convertible  at 
all  times  into  an  instrument  which  is  a  draft  at  sight  upon 
the  treasury  of  the  world. 

The  Senator  from  Ohio  in  his  speech  advocating  the 
silver  bill  eloquently  reminded  us  that  he  proposed  to  re- 
introduce the  dollar  of  the  Revolution,  and  invoked  upon 
it  the  blessing  of  sacred  memories.  I  was  not  aware 
before  that  any  silver  dollars  were  coined  by  the  United 
States  in  the  revolutionary  period  of  our  history. 

Sir,  we  have  currency  that  is  consecrated  by  memories 
more  recent  and  not  less  glorious.  We  can  preserve  it  as 
a  memento  of  a  heroic  time,  make  it  the  symbol  of  un- 
broken faith  and  the  pledge  of  a  fraternal  re-union,  whose 
consummation  is  alone  worth  the  precious  blood  that  it 
has  cost. 

Much  as  I  hope  for  the  whole  good  that  can  be  accom- 
plished by  this  system,  I  do  not  imagine  that  if  adopted  it 
will  at  once  start  the  laggard  wheels  of  industry  and  make 
the  waste  places  glad,  but  I  do  believe  it  will  inspire 
hope,  courage,  and  confidence,  and  that  its  simplicity  and 
justice  will  commend  it  to  the  reason  and  conscience  of 
the  American  people. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  one  monarch  of  the  world  to-day 
whose  throne  is  above  dominions  and  powers  and  princi- 
palities, whose  rule  is  supreme  over  law,  edict,  and  decree. 
That  monarch  is  debt.  It  is  the  annual  tribute  he  levies 
upon  the  industry  of  this  country  I  am  anxious  to  reduce. 

LETTER 

TO   THE   EDITOR    OF    "THE    REPUBLICAN,"    DECEMBER,    1875. 

CURRENCY   SUGGESTIONS. 
RADICAL  REFORM  BY  WAY  OF   THE  3.65   CONVERTIBLE  BONDS. 

If  the  abstract  question  whether  a  currency  of  par 
value  with  gold  is  better  than  one  which  is  not,  could  be 
propounded    to    the   country,   there   would    be   but   one 


306  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

answer.  The  theory  being  conceded,  the  practical  ques* 
tion  is  to  bring  the  currency  we  have  to  par,  and  to  keep 
it  there,  with  the  least  possible  disturbance  to  business 
and  existing  contracts.  I  believe  that  the  device  of  the 
interconvertible  bond  may  be  used  for  this  purpose  more 
successfully  than  any  plan  which  has  been  proposed,  and 
I  beg  to  offer  a  few  suggestions  in  the  hope  that  they  will 
elicit  that  discussion  which  will  expose  any  fallacy  there 
may  be  in  the  theory. 

If  Congress  should  enact  that  all  legal-tender  notes 
should  be  convertible  into  fifty-year  5  per  cent.  Govern- 
ment bonds,  principal  and  interest  payable  in  gold,  green- 
backs would  become  par  the  day  the  bill  was  signed,  but 
their  absorption  would  be  so  rapid  as  to  derange  business, 
ruin  debtors,  and  drive  many  of  the  national  banks  into 
liquidation.  No  one  has  proposed  so  heroic  a  remedy 
for  a  depreciated  currency.  As  the  bond  I  have  described 
would  very  soon  be  worth  a  premium  in  gold,  the  entire 
circulation  of  the  national  banks  would  be  returned  for 
redemption — if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  the  banks  can 
redeem  in  gold  or  greenbacks  at  their  option.  To-day 
greenbacks  and  gold  coin  are  both  legal-tenders,  and  if  a 
bank-note  should  be  presented  for  redemption  it  would  be 
paid  in  greenbacks;  if  greenbacks  were  fundable  into  a 
bond  worth  more  than  its  face  in  gold,  the  banks  of  course 
would  elect  to  pay  in  coin.  In  that  event,  all  greenbacks 
issued  by  the  Government  would  disappear  from  circu- 
lation, just  as  gold  coin  now  does.  Practically  the  bank- 
note now  is  never  presented  for  redemption  because  of 
the  absolute  security  of  its  ultimate  redemption.  The 
convertibility  of  the  bank-note  into  the  greenback  gives 
them  both  the  same  value,  though  that  is  the  only  value 
the  bank-note  has.  They  are,  in  fact,  interconvertible — 
either  being  given  in  exchange  for  the  other  in  all  busi- 
ness transactions.  It  requires  no  demonstration  that  two 
instruments  issued  by  the  Government  and   made  inter- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  307 

convertible  will  have  the  same  value  so  long  as  both 
exist. 

The  problem  then  is  to  make  a  bond  into  which  cur- 
rency may  be  converted,  in  which  absorption  would  not 
be  too  rapid,  and  which  would  gradually  appreciate  to  par 
as  its  credit  would  become  established  in  the  markets  of 
the  world.  The  English  consol  is  a  perpetual  3  per  cent, 
bond,  worth  now  95  per  cent.,  and  it  fluctuates  so  little 
that  its  value  is  as  stable  as  that  of  gold.  A  perpetual 
American  bond  bearing  3.65  interest  in  gold,  would  become 
of  par  value  whenever  its  credit  was  as  well  established 
as  that  of  the  English  consol.  Why  not  authorize  the 
issuance  of  such  bonds,  and  make  them  and  the  currency 
we  now  have  interconvertible  ?  It  would  "  improve  "  the 
currency,  and  make  its  gradual  appreciation  to  a  gold 
standard  a  reasonable  certainty.  The  bonds  could  be 
"  registered  "  only,  or  of  a  denomination  large  enough  to 
prevent  inflation  by  their  circulation  as  money.  The 
interconvertible  clause  would  add  to  their  value,  and  make 
them  slightly  more  valuable  at  home  than  abroad.  The 
option  of  the  Government  to  redeem  greenbacks  in  gold 
would  prevent  their  entire  absorption  in  case  the  bonds 
should  at  any  time  be  worth  a  premium  in  gold. 

All  legislation  is  experimental.  Here  is  an  experiment 
which  can  be  made  without  changing  any  existing  law, 
and  with  a  positive  assurance  that  it  would  do  no  harm. 
If  successful  in  all  particulars,  in  a  few  years  the  whole 
interest-bearing  debt  of  the  United  States  could  be  con- 
verted into  the  new  securities  ;  the  Government  would 
be  able  to  furnish  the  currency  of  the  country  upon  a 
promise  that  could  alway  be  redeemed  without  the  inter- 
vention of  blanks  of  issue ;  and  the  volume  of  the  cur- 
rency would  be  self-regulating,  in  at  least  as  high  a  degree 
and  with  less  friction  than  through  any  system  of  banking 
which  has  been  yet  devised. 


308  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

LETTER 

TO   THE  EDITOR   OF    "  THE   REPUBLICAN,"   JANUARY    I,    1 876. 

I  am  moved  by  both  The  Republican  s  approval  and 
criticism  of  my  recent  currency-reform  suggestions  (in  the 
communication  signed  "  N.  B."  on  the  16th  ult.)  to  un- 
fold more  fully  the  principles  and  probable  operation  of 
the  scheme  there  briefly  outlined.  The  pith  of  that  com- 
munication was,  that  a  3.65  gold  bond,  interconvertible 
with  paper  currency  at  central  Government  agencies, 
with  an  alternative  privilege  to  the  Government  of  re- 
deeming its  bills  in  gold  instead  of  the  bonds,  would  be 
likely  to  operate  slowly,  but  effectively,  in  restoring  our 
currency  to  the  standards  of  cosmopolitan  commerce,  and 
furnish,  in  a  simpler,  and  cheaper,  and  even  more  effective 
form,  than  the  national-banking  system,  our  whole  supply 
of  paper  money.  On  the  last  point,  The  Republican 
remarks  :  "  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  not  sanguine  that 
it  could  accomplish  all  which  the  writer  of  the  communi- 
cation hopes  for  it,  especially  in  ultimately  superseding 
banks  of  issue,  which,  in  this  country,  either  state  or 
national,  and  in  England,  both  private  and  national,  have 
always  constituted  an  important  factor  of  American  and 
British  finance/' 

The  monetary  system  of  a  country,  like  all  its  institu- 
tions, is  far  more  the  result  of  its  experience,  of  the  acci- 
dents and  exigencies  of  its  history,  than  of  any  deliberate, 
pre-determined  plan.  Universal  experience  has  demon- 
strated certain  fundamental  principles,  but  the  methods 
of  their  application  must  vary  with  circumstances.  No 
one  in  this  country  advocates  the  establishment  of  an 
institution  like  the  Bank  of  England,  however  wise  its 
adaptation  may  be  to  the  wants  and  interests  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  The  Bank  of  Amsterdam  has  sub- 
served a  most  useful  purpose,  but  no  one  proposes  to 
copy  it. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  309 

Any  monetary  system,  to  be  successful,  must  have  that 
permanence  which  is  the  result  of  a  public  confidence  that 
it  is  the  best  practicable.  Our  present  system  of  free 
national  banks  is  in  many  particulars  the  best  we  have 
ever  had,  but  no  one  is  satisfied  that  our  currency  is  the 
best  possible  or  practicable.  Until  we  attain  one  which 
satisfies  the  public  conscience  and  sense  of  equity,  we 
shall  pass  through  a  season  of  unrest  and  insecurity  which 
is  disastrous  to  business,  and  preventive  of  the  healthy 
growth  and  distribution  of  capital. 

Definitions  sometimes  become  important.  It  is  usual 
to  speak  of  gold  as  the  measure  of  value  in  the  same 
sense  that  a  pound  is  the  measure  of  weight.  The  fallacy 
ought  to  become  apparent  when  we  consider  that  gold  is 
a  substance,  the  pound  an  abstraction — a  conventional 
unit,  a  necessary  "  ideality  " — used,  among  other  pur- 
poses, to  determine  the  value  of  any  given  quantity  of 
gold.  The  value  of  a  bushel  of  wheat  is  not  measured 
by  twenty-three  grains  of  gold,  any  more  than  the  value 
of  the  gold  is  measured  by  the  wheat.  The  wheat  has  a 
value  for  certain  uses,  the  gold  for  certain  other,  and  the 
relative  value  of  given  quantities  of  wheat  and  gold  is 
determined  by  their  relative  weight.  The  wheat  may  be 
weighed  on  Fairbanks'  scales,  the  gold  at  the  United 
States  Mint,  but  both  are  brought  to  the  same  test — 
gravitation.  In  the  early  days  of  California  the  merchant 
there  weighed  the  goods  he  sold,  and  the  gold  he  received 
in  payment.  The  only  office  the  Mint  subserves  is,  that 
it  assays  and  weighs  the  gold  more  correctly  and  with 
less  expense  than  the  merchant  or  banker  could. 

Adam  Smith  announced  the  true  measure  of  value 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago — it  is  labor.  Of  course,  to 
apply  the  measure,  the  article  itself  must  have  value  to 
be  measured.  The  relative  value  of  two  articles  will  be 
the  relative  labor  necessary  for  their  production.  Their 
interchangeable  value  at  any  given  time  or  place  may  be 


310  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

influenced  by  a  great  many  accidents  not  now  necessary 
to  be  taken  into  account,  and  whose  consideration  would 
simply  involve  the  discussion  of  the  difference  between 
price  and  value.  In  our  currency  we  use  the  word 
"  dollar "  as  the  unit  for  the  measurement  of  value 
(labor),  as  we  use  the  word  "pound"  as  the  unit  for  the 
measurement  of  weight  (gravity).  Both  are  abstract 
terms.  A  sovereign  government  may  decree  that  its 
dollars  shall  be  one  thing  to-day,  and  another  to-morrow, 
just  as  it  could  change  the  statute  definition  of  the  word 
pound  ;  but  neither  values  nor  gravitation  are  changed 
by  a  change  of  definition. 

If  gold  is  not  the  measure  of  value,  what  is  it,  and  what 
office  does  it  perform  ?  It  is  the  representative  of  value 
and  instrument  of  exchange.  The  exchange  of  a  bushel 
of  wheat  for  twenty-three  grains  of  gold  is  the  exchange  of 
equivalents  of  labor.  What  gives  gold  any  value  to  be 
measured  by  the  labor  of  its  production  ?  Two  things  : — 
1st,  its  uses  in  the  arts  ;  2d,  and  principally,  the  necessity 
for  some  instrument  of  universal  exchange,  and  the  fact 
that  gold  is  the  material  which  best  meets  the  conditions 
required  for  such  an  instrument.  Its  value  for  the  second 
use  is  just  as  real  and  as  little  arbitrary  as  for  the  first ; 
just  as  intrinsic  as  that  of  railroad  iron — in  facilitating 
exchange,  it  performs  the  same  office  the  railroad  does. 

We  can  scarcely  conceive  of  the  labor  and  inconven- 
ience of  a  system  of  direct  barter.  Under  it  what  we 
know  as  civilization  would  be  impossible.  Money — the 
use  of  some  form  of  value,  which  can  be  converted  into 
every  other  form — is  the  most  efficient  labor-saving  de- 
vice ever  discovered.  Now,  whether  we  like  it  or  not ; 
whatever  different  nations  may  establish  as  "  lawful 
money,"  the  factor  to  which  each  is  reduced  to  deter- 
mine its  value  is  gold — gold,  because  that  is  the  product 
of  labor  best  suited  for  that  purpose.  The  Frenchman 
will  keep  his  accounts  in  francs,  the.  Englishman  in  ster- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  3II 

ling,  the  East  Indian  in  rupees,  the  American  in  green- 
back dollars ;  but  the  French,  English,  East  Indians, 
and  Americans  are  buying  and  selling  of  and  to  each 
other  every  day ;  the  ramifications  of  their  international 
trade  constantly  reaching  every  individual  in  each  nation, 
and  every  day  the  balance  is  adjusted  in  gold — gold  tried 
only  by  weight,  without  regard  to  alloy,  "  image  or  super- 
scription." 

The  material  which  can  perform  this  office  in  the 
world's  economy  need  not  suffer  by  poetical  contrasts 
with  the  sword.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  extreme  or  para- 
doxical, but  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that,  if  all  nations 
should,  by  law,  demonetize  gold,  its  value  would  be  im- 
paired— so  necessary  is  it  to  have  some  common  factor, 
the  essential  conditions  of  which  gold  best  supplies.  It 
would  still  remain  the  world's  money,  in  spite  of  the 
world's  laws,  just  as  to-day  it  will  buy  14  per  cent,  more 
of  commodities,  and  pay  14  per  cent,  more  on  a  debt, 
than  greenbacks  will,  in  spite  of  legal-tender  laws,  in  the 
United  States. 

By  this  time  you  will  acknowledge  I  am  enough  of  a 
"  bullionist  "  to  suit  the  "  straitest  of  the  sect."  It  does 
not  follow,  however,  that  because  gold  is  necessarily  the 
"world's  money  " — the  material  on  which  labor  can  most 
easily  mark  the  units  of  value  for  the  purpose  of  universal 
measurement — that  it  should  or  can  be  made  the  circulat- 
ing medium  of  the  various  countries  of  the  world.  Per- 
haps it  follows,  for  that  very  reason,  that  it  should  not, 
and  cannot,  be.  If  it  were  abundant  enough  to  circulate 
through  all  the  channels  of  daily  business  in  the  civilized 
world,  it  might  be  so  common  as  not  to  be  precious 
enough  to  perform  its  great  office  of  a  final  adjuster.  If 
it  could  have  met  both  these  conditions,  I  am  enough  of 
a  believer  in  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest  "  to  suppose  it 
would  have  been  adopted  for  both,  by  common  consent, 
as  certainly  as  it  has  for  one. 


312  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

I  am  not  ignorant  that  the  number  of  transactions 
which  can  be  consummated  by  the  same  dollars,  the  same 
day,  is  large  and  varied.  But  consider — the  national, 
state,  municipal,  and  corporation  debts  of  the  world,  over 
twenty  thousand  millions  of  dollars,  with  interest  to  pay 
— the  vast  expenses  of  governments — the  daily  buying 
and  selling  between  some  hundreds  of  millions  of  people  ; 
gold  would  have  to  be  winged  swifter  than  meditation  to 
accomplish  all  this. 

There  must  be  some  additional  labor-saving  device  in 
the  machinery  of  commerce  to  perform  the  daily  drudgery 
of  exchange,  and  square  its  accounts,  every  day,  with 
gold  as  the  common  adjuster.  That  device  is  credit, 
utilized  as  money.  Every  nation  that  uses  or  authorizes 
"paper  money"  adopts  that  expedient.  It  may  not  be 
the  best  expedient,  but  human  ingenuity  has  found  no 
other — suggests  no  other. 

Here,  then,  are  two  points  of  agreement  reached  by 
the  common  experience  of  civilized  commercial  nations  : 

First. — That  gold  is  the  most  accurate  representative  of 
value,  and  therefore  the  factor  into  which  all  other  values 
are  ultimately  resolved  to  determine  their  relations. 

Second. — That  credit  may  be  used  as  money  and  to 
facilitate  exchanges. 

Each  nation  determines  for  itself  what  form  of  credit 
to  use.  It  ought  to  be  the  best — "  as  good  as  gold,"  if 
possible. 

I  have  said  that  our  present  banking  system  was,  in 
many  particulars,  the  best  we  have  ever  had.  It  is  so, 
because  it  is  based  upon  the  best  credit.  There  is  abso- 
lute security  that  bank-notes  will  be  redeemed.  Redeemed 
in  what  ? — the  notes  of  the  United  States.  It  is  not  the 
credit  of  the  banks  which  makes  their  notes  good  and 
gives  them  uniformity  of  value  wherever  they  circulate, 
but  the  credit  of  the  Government. 

Now  in  political  economy,  as  well  as  in  mechanics,  all 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  313 

unnecessary  machinery  is  a  loss  of  effective  power.  Fric- 
tion is  to  be  avoided  as  much  in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 
Examine  the  practical  working  of  our  banking  system, 
and  see  if  there  be  not  some  unnecessary  machinery  and 
waste  of  power. 

The  Government  could  only  have  two  objects  in  issuing 
greenbacks :  1st,  to  obtain  a  loan  without  interest, 
2d,  to  furnish  a  form  of  credit  which  should  circulate 
as  money. 

A  national  bank  is  organized  ;  it  deposits  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  in  United  States  bonds,  and  five  thou- 
sand dollars  in  greenbacks  in  the  United  States  Treasury, 
and  receives  ninety  thousand  dollars  in  bank-notes  signed 
by  the  United  States  Treasurer,  upon  which  it  agrees  to 
pay  the  United  States  1  per  cent,  per  annum.  In  plain 
English,  what  is  this  but  the  bank  borrowing  the  credit 
of  the  Government  for  1  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  leaving 
security,  with  a  fair  margin,  upon  which  security  the 
Government  pays  the  bank  5  or  6  per  cent,  per  annum  ? 
That  is,  the  bank  pays  the  Government  upon  one  form  of 
its  credit  1  per  cent.,  and  the  Government  pays  the  bank 
upon  another  form  of  its  credit  5  or  6  per  cent,  in  the 
same  transaction — and  that  not  for  one  year,  but  while 
the  bank  charter  continues. 

Now  if  the  first  object — a  loan  without  interest — con- 
trols the  Government  in  issuing  the  greenbacks,  that  is 
defeated  by  this  operation  to  the  extent  of  all  bank 
circulation. 

If  the  second,  it  is  unnecessary,  for  the  bank-note 
never  can  be  better  than  the  greenback  in  which  it  is 
payable. 

You  will  observe  I  am  speaking  of  the  condition  of 
things  which  exists,  and  not  of  what  would  be  if  the 
greenback  were  eliminated. 

Now  suppose  for  any  cause  the  bank  goes  into  liquida- 
tion.    The   Government   sells   the  securities,  and,  after 


314  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

redeeming  the  bills  of  the  bank  in  Government  bills  (for 
which  as  yet  there  is  no  plan  of  redemption),  pays  over 
the  residue  to  the  stockholders.  All  this  circumlocution, 
from  the  first  establishment  of  the  bank  to  its  liquidation, 
to  get  back  to  the  United  States  note,  which  could  have 
just  as  well  been  issued  directly  in  the  first  instance. 

If  it  be  necessary,  by  all  means  let  us  put  fifth  wheels 
on  our  coaches,  devise  engines  to  run  engines,  invent  a 
grate  to  warm  the  fire,  and  grease  water  that  it  may  run 
down  hill ! 

It  is  constantly  said  that  the  Government  ought  not  to 
engage  in  the  business  of  banking.  It  is  engaged  in  the 
"business  of  banking,"  and  undertakes  to  administer 
upon  the  assets  of  banks  in  a  manner  which  is  unprofit- 
able and  unnecessary. 

The  issuance  of  bills  of  credit  to  circulate  as  money  is 
not  a  function  of  banking,  but  of  Government,  and  no 
bank  or  individual  is  permitted  to  exercise  it  under  any 
wise  policy,  except  by  the  consent  and  delegation  of  the 
Government. 

You  say  you  "  are  not  sanguine  that  the  plan  suggested 
would  succeed  in  ultimately  superseding  banks  of  issue, 
which  in  this  country  and  in  England,  both  private  and 
national,  have  always  constituted  an  important  factor  of 
American  and  British  finance."  "  Important,"  I  admit, 
but  in  our  case  certainly  not  always  a  helpful  one.  I  can 
remember  when  "  wild-cat,"  "  blue-pup,"  and  "  red-dog  " 
were  the  familiar  and  significant  names  of  the  paper 
money  current  in  certain  Western  States ;  when  "  cord 
for  cord  "  was  called  a  fair  exchange  between  "  Gallipolis 
bank-notes  "  and  cord-wood  at  the  steamboat  landings  on 
the  Ohio ;  when  a  bank-note  caught  astray  over  a  State 
line  was  arrested  as  a  trespasser;  and  when  exchange 
between  Indiana  and  New  York  was  at  10  per  cent, 
premium,  though  the  Indiana  State  bank  was  as  solvent 
as  any  in  the  Union. 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  315 

The  present  scheme  is  incomparably  better,  I  admit — 
better  because  based  upon  the  Government  credit.  Why 
not  go  a  step  further,  and  use  the  Government  credit 
directly,  in  place  of  lending  it  at  one  per  cent,  and  paying 
six? 

If  one  quarter  the  thought  and  attention  had  been 
given  to  improving  the  national  currency  that  have  been 
to  dovetailing  into  it  the  bank-note,  and  maintaining 
and  reconciling  a  system  artificially  complicated,  the 
greenback  would  have  been  at  par  with  gold  long  ago. 

It  seems  to  be  apprehended,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
without  banks  of  issue  there  would  be  a  deficiency  of 
currency ;  and  on  the  other,  that  without  them  the 
Government  would  "  inflate "  the  currency.  Suppose 
the  Government,  to-day,  could  substitute  greenbacks  for 
the  bank-notes  in  circulation  ;  the  volume  of  currency 
would  be  the  same,  the  quality  no  worse.  Do  you  fear 
there  would  be  a  failure  of  the  necessary  machinery  for 
the  proper  distribution  of  currency  to  meet  the  wants  of 
the  people  and  for  the  accommodation  of  business  ? 
Have  the  receiving  of  deposits,  drawing  exchange,  and 
lending  of  money  suddenly  become  so  unprofitable  or 
irksome  a  business  that  no  one  will  engage  in  it,  without 
the  added  premium  of  a  power  to  issue  money? 

Suppose  the  substitution  made,  and  to-morrow  the 
currency  should  be  made  convertible  into  a  perpetual  3.65 
gold  bond ;  would  not  that  improve  the  currency  to  the 
value  of  such  a  bond  ?  Make  the  bond  interconvertible 
with  currency  ;  will  not  that  give  it  additional  value,  by 
making  it  the  receptacle  of  the  money  of  estates  of  dece- 
dents and  bankrupts  under  administration,  and  giving  it 
a  power  of  absorbing  money  temporarily  idle,  but  wanted 
"  on  call  "  ?  Is  there  an  apprehension  that  its  absorbing 
qualities  would  become  so  great  that  the  currency  of  the 
country  would  rush  into  it  and  disappear  from  circulation  ? 
That  could  only  happen  when  such  a  bond  was  worth  a 


316  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

premium  in  gold  ;  then  the  gold  of  the  world  would 
seek  it  as  an  investment,  until  our  6  per  cent,  bonds 
could  be  exchanged  for  3.65*5,  a  result  I  could  contem- 
plate with  very  considerable  philosophic  composure,  even 
if  it  were  nearer  than  I  anticipate ;  while  the  catastrophe 
of  an  entire  disappearance  of  our  currency  would  be  effec- 
tually prevented  by  the  option  of  the  Government  to 
redeem  it  in  gold.  When  that  period  arrives,  men  will 
take  their  gold  to  the  United  States  Treasury  and  ex- 
change it  for  Government  notes  on  account  of  their 
superior  convenience. 

Very  seriously,  my  dear  Mr.  Editor,  I  do  believe  the 
bond  I  have  mentioned  would  appreciate  to  par,  carry- 
ing the  greenback  with  it  with  reasonable  rapidity  and 
certainty ;  that  it  would  eventually  take  up  all  out 
bonds ;  that,  as  such  a  security  would  for  many  purposes 
be  more  valuable  at  home  than  abroad,  it  would  be  held 
in  larger  proportions  at  home  than  our  present  bonds  are 
— large  enough  to  afford  an  ample  basis  for  any  expansion 
of  currency,  if  any  should  become  necessary. 

Under  such  a  system,  if  more  currency  were  necessary, 
in  place  of  the  circumlocution  of  lending  Government 
credit  to  banks,  the  capital  which  now  organizes  banks 
would  take  Government  bonds  to  the  treasury,  get  notes 
for  them,  with  the  absolute  certainty  that  when,  for  any 
cause,  the  notes  came  home,  they  would  find  the  exact 
security  left  in  pledge  for  them.  Government  promises 
under  all  circumstances  would  be  fulfilled  to  the  letter, 
and  paper  money  would  no  longer  be  a  lie. 

The  plan  may  not  be  the  best  conceivable — is  it  not 
the  best  practicable?  I  do  not  imagine  that  it  would 
start  at  once  the  laggard  wheels  of  industry  and  make 
the  waste  places  glad,  but  I  believe  it  honest,  practicable, 
and  that  it  offers  the  most  favorable  conditions  for  gradual 
improvement  and  healthy  growth  of  any  yet  suggested. 

One  thing  is  certain  :  either  the  greenback  or  the  bank- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  317 

note  will  disappear  from  our  circulation.  No  arbitrary 
fixing  of  the  amount  of  greenbacks  will  or  ought  to  keep 
them  in  circulation  as  mere  tenders  to  bank-notes.  We 
shall  eventually  have  one  system  or  the  other.  If  we 
have  the  banking  system,  there  will  be  no  real  resumption, 
no  holding  of  gold  as  a  reserve  which  gives  an  absolute 
assurance  of  payment  on  presentation — the  credit  of  the 
bank-note  will  still  depend  upon  the  credit  of  the  Govern- 
ment behind  it.  There  will  be  a  great  many  banks  of  issue 
located  at  points  distant  from  business  centres,  and  not  of 
the  most  convenient  access.  The  profit  on  circulation 
given  to  the  banks  will  be  a  premium  offered  for  inflation, 
and  a  temptation  to  it,  which  even  the  superior  human 
nature  of  the  average  bank  director  will  not  always 
resist. 

At  the  risk  of   becoming  prolix,  let  me  recapitulate : 

First. — Greenbacks  will  be  worth  as  much  as  the  bonds 
into  which  they  may  be  made  convertible. 

Second. — Making  bonds  and  greenbacks  interconvert- 
ible will  give  the  bonds  additional  value  by  making 
them  desirable  for  a  large  class  of  investments  which 
would  not  otherwise  seek  them,  and,  by  as  much  as  is 
added  to  their  value  by  this  quality,  the  interest  will  be 
reduced  which  the  Government  is  required  to  pay  in  order 
to  bring  its  bonds  to  par  with  gold. 

Third. — As  the  English  consol,  a  perpetual  3  per  cent, 
gold  security,  is  worth  95,  an  American  gold  bond  on  long 
time  or  perpetual  at  3.65,  with  the  added  value  of  the 
interconvertible  clause,  would  appreciate  to  par  with  gold 
as  its  credit  would  become  established,  which  would  be 
as  rapidly  as  the  country  can  return  to  the  specie  stand- 
ard in  justice  to  existing  contracts. 

Fourth. — The"  interconvertible  "  character  of  the  bonds 
would  enable  the  Government  credit  to  circulate  as 
money  in  just  such  volume  as  the  business  of  the  coun- 
try would  demand,  without  the  intervention  of  the  cum- 


318  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

bersome,  expensive,  and  unnecessary  machinery  of  banks 
of  issue,  whose  notes  have  no  value  except  that  of  the 
Government  credit. 

Fifth. — There  would  be  no  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  a 
power  of  doubtful  constitutionality  and  dangerous  policy 
in  the  creation  of  corporations  by  the  General  Govern- 
ment. 

Sixth. — When  Government  notes  appreciate  to  the  spe- 
cie standard,  the  legal-tender  quality  can  be  removed  with- 
out opposition,  and  we  shall  again  be  within  constitutional 
limitations  on  the  subject  of  finance. 

Holding  no  opinions  from  which  I  can  be  deterred  from 
changing,  under  conviction,  for  better  ones,  by  the  fear  of 
inconsistency, 

I  am,  dear  sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Newton  Booth. 

SPEECH 

DELIVERED  IN   THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

CHINESE   IMMIGRATION. 

The  Senate,  as  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  having  resumed  the  consid- 
eration of  the  joint  resolution  (S.  No.  20)  relative  to  Chinese  immigration, 
Mr.  Booth  said : 

Mr.  President :  No  question  of  graver  importance  or 
more  absorbing  interest  to  the  people  of  the  State  I  have 
the  honor  in  part  to  represent  has  ever  been  presented 
to  the  consideration  of  the  Senate  than  that  to  which  I 
invite  attention.  To  most  of  you,  Senators,  it  is  an  ab- 
straction ;  to  them  it  is  vital,  touching  not  only  the  dom- 
inance of  parties,  forms  of  government,  and  methods  of 
law,  but  the  organization  of  society  itself.  I  do  not  think 
I  overstate  the  gravity  of   the  situation  in  asserting  my 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  319 

belief  that  early  legislation  by  Congress  upon  this  subject 
may  prevent  a  convulsion  in  California  which  will  shake 
the  foundation  of  social  order.  I  deem  it  my  solemn 
duty  to  express  my  conviction  that  if  it  shall  be  decided 
that  the  policy  of  free,  unrestricted  immigration  of  Chin- 
ese is  right  and  must  be  maintained,  the  Government 
should  be  prepared  to  maintain  it  by  force  and  to  over- 
awe a  community  which  on  this  subject  is  rife  with  dan- 
gerous discontent. 

It  may  be  that  it  is  wrong  that  it  is  so  ;  doubtless  many 
of  you  believe  it  to  be  grievously  wrong,  but  you  are  en- 
titled to  know  the  truth,  however  it  may  influence  your 
opinions  or  action. 

On  this  question  there  is  as  general  unanimity  of  public 
sentiment  in  California,  and  I  believe  in  her  sister  States 
on  the  Pacific  border,  as  is  ever  attained  upon  any  politi- 
cal question  in  time  of  peace,  and  there  is  a  deep-seated 
feeling  that  the  sentiment  of  the  community  immediately 
interested  in  and  practically  familiar  with  the  subject  is 
not  to  be  put  aside  as  an  exhibition  of  prejudice,  ebulli- 
ence of  passion,  or  treated  as  a  corrupt  humor  of  the 
blood,  but  is  entitled  to  grave  consideration. 

Public  opinion  is  agitated  in  California  and  the  most 
conservative  sentiment  is  alarmed.  We  constantly  decry 
agitation,  but  the  only  agitator  to  be  feared  is  the  presence 
of  wrong;  and  while  that  continues  there  will  be  agitation 
or  the  stagnation  of  political  death.  The  theory  of  our 
Government  is  not  one  of  repression,  but  of  voluntary 
obedience  to  laws  which  represent  public  opinion.  When 
Enceladus  stirs  beneath  the  surface,  the  foundations  of 
the  temples  are  but  as  straw  and  stubble. 

The  people  of  the  Pacific  coast  are  widely  separated  from 
the  great  mass  of  their  countrymen  in  distance,  but  they 
are  blood  of  their  blood,  bone  of  their  bone,  and  they  yield 
to  none  in  their  devotion  to  the  traditions  of  the  Republic 
and  love  for  its  institutions.      California  is  not  yet  a  gen- 


320  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

eration  old.  Its  active  men  of  to-day,  its  forming  minds, 
went  out  from  your  midst,  carrying  with  them  American 
ideas,  to  meet  new  and  strange  conditions  of  life.  It  was 
a  novel  experience,  and  to  those  who  enjoyed  it  it  is  like 
first  love,  the  memory  of  which  is  sweeter  than  present 
possession. 

No  community  ever  better  illustrated  the  American 
capacity  for  self-government.  Social  order  preceded 
the  restraints  of  law.  The  pioneers  of  the  new  "  El 
Dorado  "  carried  the  American  State  in  the  "  book  and 
volume  of  their  brain."  There  was  no  necessity  for  vice- 
roy or  charter  or  letters-patent.  Men  from  every  section 
of  our  common  country,  thousands  of  miles  from  the 
homes  they  had  left  behind  them,  met  in  a  land  so 
recently  acquired  that  it  still  seemed  foreign  soil,  under 
conditions  so  novel  they  seemed  hardly  a  part  of 
the  daily  life  of  human  experience,  and  by  a  common 
impulse  improvised  a  State.  It  is  a  new  chapter  in 
history  and  the  best  imprint  of  American  civilization  is 
upon  it. 

I  trust  I  have  not  transcended  the  limits  of  good  taste. 
I  am  not  endeavoring  to  exalt  the  State  of  my  adoption 
above  other  States,  but  to  illustrate  the  adaptability  of 
American  character  and  the  American  idea  of  government. 
There  are  no  States,  few  counties  in  any  State,  which  were 
not  represented  in  the  early  emigration  to  the  Pacific  coast. 
There  is  probably  no  Senator  on  this  floor  who  was  not 
bound  by  some  tie  of  kindred  or  personal  friendship  to 
some  of  the  pioneers  of  Oregon  and  California,  who 
crossed  the  continent  and  buttressed  the  arch  of  the 
Republic  on  the  shores  of  the  western  sea.  No  com- 
munities to-day  better  represent  the  average  type  of 
American  character  than  the  people  of  the  Pacific  States. 
And  I  reassert  the  claim  that  their  general  verdict  on  a 
question  which  lies  at  their  doors,  comes  home  to  them, 
is  entitled  to  grave  consideration.     The  conditions  which 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  32 1 

create  unanimity  of  sentiment  there  would  create  it 
elsewhere. 

If  China  were  situated  relative  to  our  Atlantic  coast 
as  it  is  to  the  Pacific,  and  a  Chinese  immigration  had 
entered  our  Atlantic  ports  of  the  same  character  as  that 
which  enters  the  Pacific,  and  in  volume  as  large  in  pro- 
portion to  the  population  of  the  Eastern  States  as  that 
is  to  the  population  of  the  Pacific,  there  would  be  no 
occasion  to  argue  this  question.  It  would  demand  and 
receive  prompt,  decisive  action.  If  there  were  in  New 
York,  Massachusetts,  or  Iowa,  or  Georgia,  one  hundred 
Chinese  male  adults  to  every  one  hundred  and  fifty 
American  voters,  and  it  were  realized  that  this  was  but 
a  beginning,  that  the  stream  might  swell  to  an  Amazon 
without  visibly  affecting  the  vast  reservoir  from  which 
it  flows,  the  subject  would  be  regarded  here  as  it  is  in 
California,  as  one  of  paramount,  supreme  importance, 
touching  the  whole  future  of  the  Republic,  its  political 
institutions,  industrial,  and  social,  life. 

Mr.  President,  if  we  confront  Asia  as  we  do  Europe  ; 
if  we  realize  that  this  continent  might  become,  not  the 
opportunity  for  the  full  development  of  that  civilization 
which  is  the  highest  achievement  and  most  precious  in- 
heritance of  our  race,  but  a  conflict  between  two  forms 
of  civilization  opposite  in  tendency  and  in  the  types  of 
character  they  produce,  every  power  of  the  Government 
would  be  invoked  to  avert  such  a  catastrophe.  This 
civilization  in  which  we  live  is  so  familiar  to  us  that  we 
accept  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  much  a  part  of  our 
daily  life  as  air  and  sunlight.  Free  institutions  are  its 
bright  consummate  flower.  They  are  possible  in  no 
other.  They  depend  for  their  maintenance  not  upon 
the  discipline  of  the  law,  but  upon  the  devotion  of  the 
people. 

Introduce  into  the  people  a  foreign  element,  incapable 
of  assimilation,  of  a  type  fixed  in   its  unchangeableness 


322  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

by  immemorial  ages,  alien  in  race,  tradition,  custom,  and 
you  will  inevitably  modify  the  social  conditions  which 
underlie  government  and  give  it  form  and  character. 
Free  men  are  necessary  to  create  and  preserve  free  insti- 
tutions ;  independent,  self-relying  citizens  are  essential 
to  an  enlightened,  stable,  popular  government,  men 
imbued  with  American  ideas  to  the  American  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  the  people  who  give  form  and  character 
to  the  government,  not  the  government  to  the  people. 
They  may  interact,  but  the  primary  source  and  govern- 
ing influence  is  from  beneath. 

Sir,  the  centre,  the  source  of  the  civilization  in  which 
we  live,  of  the  institutions  we  believe  to  be  its  highest 
outgrowth,  is  the  family. 

Take  away  the  bond  of  family,  the  feeling  which 
identifies  home  with  country,  the  ties  of  blood  which  give 
the  strong  kinship  of  race,  from  our  civilization,  and 
what  is  there  left  which  is  worth  retaining  ?  The  immi- 
gration which  comes  to  us  from  kindred  races  and  plants 
the  family  on  our  soil  is  welcome.  It  will  add  to  our 
strength,  and  its  blood  will  soon  blend  with  and  become 
a  part  of  the  American  type.  But  any  immigration 
which  does  not  come  under  these  conditions  will  attack 
and  destroy  the  foundations  of  our  institutions,  social  and 
political,  in  proportion  to  its  volume. 

Mr.  President,  I  appeal  to  all  who  are  personally  familiar 
with  the  subject  to  corroborate  or  refute  my  statement, 
that  in  the  ninety-odd  thousand  Chinese  population  in 
California,  eight  ninths  of  which  are  male  adults,  there 
are  no  families  ;  among  them  the  marriage  relation  is 
practically  unknown.  Their  numbers  are  recruited 
from  China.  Their  presence  will  eventuate,  not  in  a 
blending  of  people  of  a  common  race,  nor  in  a  blending 
of  races,  but  in  a  conflict  of  races.  It  is  only  a  question 
of  time  and  numbers. 

Sir,  the  problem  of  popular  government  on  this  conti- 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  323 

nent  is  difficult  enough,  doubtful  enough,  without  this 
new  disturbing  quantity,  this  insoluble  complication. 

I  appeal  to  history,  when  and  where  have  races 
so  diverse,  so  antagonistic  in  character,  been  able  vol' 
untarily  to  maintain  the  same  form  of  government? 
When  has  their  commingling  failed  to  reach  the 
subordination  of  one  to  the  other  or  collision  injurious 
to  both  ? 

We  are  the  creatures  of  a  day,  but  time  and  universal 
experience  do  not  change.  We  are  not  exempt  from 
their  conditions.  We  must  meet  this  question  at  the 
threshold.  It  is  the  riddle  of  the  sphinx.  We  must 
solve  it  or  it  will  destroy  us.  If  the  advocates  of  the 
policy  of  unrestricted  Chinese  immigration  are  right,  we 
should  open  wide  the  doors  to  the  four  hundred  million 
Chinese,  who  are  practically  nearer  to  us  to-day  than 
Europe  was  fifty  years  ago. 

Mr.  President,  the  competitions  of  modern  civilized 
life  are  sharp.  It  is  a  competition  not  merely  for  pre- 
cedence but  for  existence.  The  character,  the  future,  the 
destiny  of  our  Republic  depend  far  more  on  the  condi- 
tion of  those  who  toil  than  of  those  who  enjoy. 

I  am  not  speaking  to  California;  I  am  not  speaking 
to  the  Western  coast :  I  am  trying  to  speak  to  the 
East,  and  above  all  to  you,  Senators,  to  your  patriotism, 
reason,  and  judgment ;  and  I  ask  you  what  will  become 
of  the  American  idea  which  is  founded  upon  the  per- 
sonal independence  of  American  citizenship,  of  American 
institutions,  and  of  that  civilization  on  which  they  are 
based,  and  whose  corner-stone  is  the  family,  if  the  Ameri- 
can laborer,  if  the  great  mass  of  our  fellow-citizens  who 
bear  life's  burdens,  fight  life's  battles — our  battles — whose 
daily  sweat  waters  the  tree  of  luxury  whose  fruits  we 
enjoy,  is  brought  into  direct  competition  for  daily  bread 
with  a  class  who  have  no  families  to  support,  and  give 
no  bonds  to  fate  and  country,  if  the  family  becomes  a 


324  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

luxury  of  those  who  have  achieved  success,  and  not  a 
condition  of  daily  life  ? 

Mr.  President,  you  have  been  taught  to  look  upon  this 
question  as  one  of  mere  labor  agitation.  If  it  were  that 
only,  it  would  be  entitled  to  consideration  and  not  sneers. 
The  essential  conditions  of  society  are  to  be  found,  not 
upon  its  surface,  but  in  its  depths.  It  is  far  more  necessary 
to  peace,  progress,  and  good  order  that  the  daily  laborer 
should  be  satisfied  with  the  conditions  of  his  life  and  the 
rewards  of  his  toil  than  the  capitalist,  banker,  or  we  who  sit 
in  senatorial  chairs.  He  should  be  able  to  feel  at  all  times, 
that  promotion  is  from  the  ranks.  His  burden  is  heavy, 
and  he  should  not  be  deprived  of  the  hope,  which  is  the 
solace  of  his  toil,  that  his  children  may  obtain  the  prizes 
of  life  which  fortune  has  denied  to  him.  That  hope  is  one 
of  the  great  conservators  of  society,  reconciling  men  to 
the  distinctions  in  life  which,  if  they  were  regarded  as 
unchanging  as  they  are  inevitable,  would  result  in  the 
sullen  acquiescence  of  caste  or  the  open  revolt  of  com- 
munism. Destroy  that  hope  and  you  must  substitute 
the  armed  repressive  force  of  absolute  government  for 
voluntary  obedience  to  law  or  relapse  into  the  tideless 
sea  of  despair. 

When  the  common  interest  of  labor  speaks,  the  states- 
manship which  does  not  heed  its  voice  is  drunken  with 
pride  or  besotted  with  folly.  The  laborers  of  the  Pacific 
coast  say  to  the  American  public,  "  We  have  families  to 
support,  children  to  educate,  the  burdens  of  citizenship  to 
carry.  We  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  State  in  peace, 
are  prepared  to  defend  it  in  war  to  the  shedding  of  our 
blood,  to  the  sacrifice  of  our  lives,  and  we  are  brought  into 
direct  competition  for  daily  bread  with  a  class  who  claim 
the  protection  of  our  laws  but  who  bear  none  of  these 
burdens,  acknowledge  none  of  these  obligations,  and  we 
must  renounce  the  ties  of  family  or  of  country."  Is  it 
any   reply   to   him  to  say  that  cheap  labor  hastens  the 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  325 

development  of  the  material  resources  of  the  State  and 
increases  the  aggregate  of  its  wealth  ?  He  will  answer, 
"  Of  what  benefit  is  it  to  me  if  the  resources  of  the  State 
are  developed  and  its  wealth  increased  if  my  share  in  these 
advantages  is  diminished  by  the  very  means  adopted  to 
secure  them  ?  "  Will  he  listen  with  patience  to  the  argu- 
ment that  cheap  labor  increases  production  as  labor-saving 
machinery  does,  and  is  a  like  factor  in  progress  and 
civilization  ?  Will  he  graciously  regard  that  progress 
which  reduces  or  eliminates  him  ? 

Few  great  mechanical  inventions  have  ever  been  made 
which  did  not,  at  the  time  of  their  introduction,  cause  dis- 
tress among  artisans  and  operatives,  whose  employment 
was  suspended  and  whose  skill  was  rendered  useless. 
Even  these  great  triumphs  of  peace,  like  the  splendid 
triumphs  of  war,  have  their  human  victims  and  are  bought 
with  sacrifice. 

The  compensation,  and  I  admit  it  to  be  a  general  com- 
pensation, and  of  little  worth  to  him  who  is  crushed 
beneath  the  "  Juggernaut,"  is,  that  ultimately  labor  will 
arm  itself  with  these  improved  implements  and  share  in 
the  benefits  of  increased  production. 

Here  you  propose  not  an  arming,  but  a  substitution ; 
not  an  increased  power  of  production,  but  an  elimination 
in  favor  of  another  human  factor  which  will  produce  more 
at  less  expense.  This  is  to  consider  a  man  as  a  mere 
machine,  whose  value  is  to  be  ascertained  by  the  amount 
he  produces  less  the  amount  he  consumes.  It  is  to  leave 
out  of  the  calculation  blood  and  brain,  aspiration,  want, 
and  despair.  It  is  to  ignore  the  elemental  forces  by  which 
and  for  which  society  exists.  I  know  these  cold  specula- 
tions of  the  economists  which  assume  that  the  tree  would 
flower  if  the  root  were  destroyed.  I  know  these  calcula- 
tions which  estimate  the  value  of  society  by  the  amount 
which  is  heaped  up  and  not  by  the  distribution — whose 
end  is  splendor  and  not  happiness. 


326  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Chinese  immigration  simply  plants  a  foreign  colony  in 
this  country  constantly  recruited  from  abroad,  alien  in 
race,  distinctive  in  laws,  manners,  habits,  and  in  so  far  as 
it  tends  to  cheapen  labor  it  also  tends  to  degrade  it  by 
making  the  toilers  a  class  ;  fixing  and  hardening  the  social 
distinctions  which  the  spirit  of  our  civilization  and  the 
genius  of  our  institutions  require  should  be  fluid  and 
changing. 

Mr.  President,  in  the  sentiments  I  have  endeavored  to 
express  there  is  no  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  Chinaman. 
There  is  no  man  so  poor,  so  humble,  so  despised  that  I  do 
not  recognize  and  reverence  in  him  the  likeness  of  that 
image  after  which  we  are  all  made.  I  rejoice  at  the  ad- 
vancement of  every  race,  at  the  amelioration  of  all  of 
human  kind.  But  I  love  my  own  race,  my  own  country 
best,  and  believing  this  question  touches  the  interest  of 
these,  I  ask  for  it,  Senators,  your  early,  earnest,  and  can- 
did consideration. 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  JANUARY,  1878. 
ON  THE 

LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF  OLIVER  P.  MORTON. 

(SENATOR    FROM    INDIANA.) 

Mr.  President :  To  epitomize  the  life  and  character  of 
Oliver  Perry  Morton  in  the  few  moments  devoted  to 
these  observances  is  impossible  to  mortal  utterance.  The 
stalwart  proportions  of  his  living  presence  are  but  realized 
by  the  void  his  death  has  made. 

But  yesterday  he  was  one  of  us,  of  like  clay  and  pas- 
sions. The  echoes  of  his  voice  have  scarcely  died  in  this 
Chamber.  To-day  he  is  as  far  from  us  as  Demonsthenes 
or  Abraham  or  the  generations  that  perished  before  the 
Flood. 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  227 

Less  than  most  men  intellectually  his  equals  does  he 
need  the  voice  of  eulogy.  The  clearness  of  his  purposes, 
the  boldness  of  his  opinions,  his  tireless  activity,  his  in- 
domitable will,  have  impressed  "  the  very  age  and  body 
of  the  time."     His  life  was  a  force  which  cannot  die. 

That  fireside  criticism  which  dwells  apart  in  the  seclu- 
sion of  its  own  self-importance,  and  would  not  soil  its 
dainty  fingers  by  contact  with  affairs,  which  believes 
government  is  a  science  as  exact  as  mathematics,  that 
human  nature  is  plastic  as  clay  and  cold  as  marble,  may 
dwarf  his  image  in  the  penny  mirror  it  holds  up  to  the 
universe  and  in  which  the  only  colossal  figure  it  beholds 
is  the  reflection  of  itself ;  but  he  has  made  his  own  place 
in  history  "  safe  'gainst  the  tooth  of  time  and  razure  of 
oblivion." 

He  lived  in  a  heroic  age — this  age — an  age  so  great 
that  the  distance  of  intervening  centuries  will  be  neces- 
sary to  measure  its  heroism,  its  achievements,  and  its 
sacrifices. 

We,  as  Americans,  must  be  excusable  for  believing,  we 
should  be  inexcusable  if  we  did  not  believe,  that  no 
political  question  of  graver  consequence  to  all  succeeding 
time  was  ever  confronted  by  any  people  than  that  which 
culminated  in  our  civil  war.  History  will  record  that 
the  war  was  the  inevitable  result  of  an  irrepressible  conflict 
of  moral  forces,  for  which  peace  had  no  arbitrament. 
Morton's  life  was  cast  in  a  State  where  this  conflict  of 
opinion  was  eager,  passionate,  and  doubtful.  He  was  at 
the  meeting  of  the  currents  in  the  circling  of  the  maelstrom. 
What  to  others  was  a  conviction,  a  sentiment,  to  him 
became  an  inspiration  and  a  passion.  He  was  intensely 
American.  For  his  large  nature,  and  for  his  great  ambi- 
tion too,  the  continent  was  none  too  wide.  That  his 
country  should  play  a  subordinate  part  in  human  affairs 
never  entered  his  imagination  to  conceive.  He  would 
have  enlarged  the  bounds  of  destiny  to  give  it  scope  and 


328  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

amplitude.  The  sentiment  that  this  is  a  "  nation,  one, 
indivisible,  indestructible,"  so  permeated  his  intellect  that 
any  other  seemed  political  profanation  and  sacrilege. 
With  him  this  was  not  a  theory  of  construction,  but  a 
source  and  centre  ;  not  an  abstraction,  but  living  faith. 
Not  Webster  has  expressed  his  faith  with  more  massive 
strength,  nor  Baker  with  more  impassionate  fervor. 

No  man  had  an  earlier  or  clearer  apprehension  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  war  on  whose  verge  we  stood,  and  the 
tremendous  issues  it  involved.  Of  Titan  mold,  near  to 
nature,  elemental  powers  were  his  familiars.  He  had  an 
instinctive  sense  of  the  awful  forces  that  are  unleashed 
by  war.  He  knew  that  in  the  air,  so  still  it  would  not 
stir  the  floating  down,  the  fury  of  the  tempest  slept. 

In  the  halcyon  days,  amid  delusive  promises  of  peace, 
he  saw  that  war  was  inevitable,  and  rose  to  the  supreme 
height  of  the  occasion.  In  a  speech  on  the  22d  of 
November,  i860,  which  rang  through  the  country  like 
a  call  to  arms,  he  said  :  "  Seven  years  is  but  a  day  in  the 
lifetime  of  a  nation,  and  I  would  rather  come  out  of  a 
struggle  at  the  end  of  that  time  defeated  in  arms,  con- 
ceding independence  to  successful  revolution,  than  to 
purchase  present  peace  by  the  concession  of  a  principle 
that  must  inevitably  explode  this  nation  into  small,  dis- 
honored fragments." 

He  flunked  nothing,  concealed  nothing.  He  knew  the 
uncertainties  of  war,  its  dread  sacrifices,  and  declared 
that  all  these,  though  followed  by  defeat,  were  better 
than  inaction  or  the  compromise  of  a  principle  he  deemed 
essential  to  the  existence  of  any  republic  on  this  continent. 

This  was  at  once  his  confession  of  political  faith  and 
the  keynote  of  his  character.  In  the  cause  he  cham- 
pioned, he  would  have  dared  fate  itself  to  the  lists,  and 
matched  his  will  against  the  courses  of  the  stars. 

There  is  neither  time  nor  necessity  to  trace  his  career. 
To  leave  out  Morton  and  his  influence  would  be  to  re- 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  329 

write  the  history  of  this  country  for  the  past  eighteen 
years,  and  to  modify  it  for  all  time  to  come.  In  the 
great  struggle  on  which  the  existence  of  the  Union  was 
staked  he  held  the  central  fort.  No  living  man  can  tell 
what  the  result  would  have  been  if  he  had  not  been 
where  and  what  he  was. 

In  character  his  will  dominated  his  intellect,  great  as 
that  was.  He  seemed  incapable  of  indecision.  To 
resolve  was  to  leave  doubt  behind.  Thought,  resolution, 
action,  were  constant. 

As  a  debator  he  was  an  athlete  trained  down  to  pure 
muscle.  In  speech,  careless  of  the  graces  of  oratory  and 
polish  of  style,  his  earnestness  enchained  attention,  his 
directness  carried  conviction,  and  there  was  a  natural 
symmetry  in  the  strength  of  his  statement  above  the 
reach  of  art. 

He  was  a  partisan  ;  instinct  and  experience  taught  him 
that  organization  was  essential  to  the  triumph  of  any 
political  principle  or  the  successful  administration  of  a 
popular  government.  He  was  a  born  leader,  conscious  of 
his  power  and  jealous  of  his  right  to  lead.  He  was  ambi- 
tious ;  but  blessed  is  the  memory  of  him  whose  ambition 
is  at  one  with  the  best  aspirations  of  humanity,  whose 
death  is  a  loss  to  the  weak,  and  whose  grave  is  wet  with 
the  tears  of  the  humble  and  the  despised. 

Large  brained,  large  framed,  and  brawny  muscled,  his 
vigorous  health,  freedom  of  motion,  physical  indepen- 
dence, manly  presence,  were  his  joy  and  pride,  and  a  part 
of  that  full  endowment  of  mind  and  body  which  gave 
him  commanding  rank.  But  when  at  life's  meridian  he 
was  stricken  with  the  cruel  paralysis  from  which  he  was 
never  to  recover,  he  accepted  his  lot  without  repining. 
What  to  another  would  have  been  a  warning  to  quit 
active  service  and  an  excuse  for  ease  and  rest,  to  him  was 
the  occasion  of  increased  exertion  and  mental  activity. 
The  broken  sword  only  made  the  combat  closer. 


330  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

When  the  fatal  symptoms  of  his  malady  appeared  some 
months  before  his  death,  he  said  to  a  friend  that  he 
realized  the  end  had  come,  but  he  felt  his  career  was  in- 
complete, his  life-work  not  finished.  Perhaps  he  felt,  too, 
that  death  was  stepping  between  him  and  the  great  prize 
of  his  personal  ambition.  He  knew  the  night  was  settling 
on  the  home  of  which  his  love  was  the  day-spring. 

From  that  time  the  American  people  watched  the 
wasting  sands  of  his  life  and  counted  his  failing  pulse. 
He  fought  death  as  an  equal  for  every  inch  of  time  until 
"  worn  out," — worn  out  by  long  suffering  and  hard  con- 
flict, he  yielded  to  the  conqueror  of  all. 

However  long  expected,  the  death  of  one  we  honor 
or  love  comes  at  last  as  a  shock.  No  preparation  can 
take  away  its  final  suddenness.  There  is  not  a  precinct 
in  all  this  broad  land  where  Morton's  death  was  not  felt. 
The  nation  was  bereaved.  His  State  was  his  chief 
mourner.  Political  friends  and  opponents  vied  with  each 
other  to  honor  his  memory.  A  hundred  thousand  men, 
women,  and  children  took  a  last  look  at  his  face,  softened 
and  refined  by  death,  every  trace  of  suffering,  every 
mark  of  conflict  gone.  On  a  chill  November  afternoon  a 
vast  concourse  followed  him  to  the  grave.  The  shades  of 
night  were  falling  when  the  last  rite  was  spoken  and  the 
great  crowd  dispersed,  leaving  him  alone  with  the  dead. 

There  will  be  music  and  song,  revelry  and  mirth.  "  The 
seasons  in  their  bright  round  will  come  and  go  ;  hope, 
and  joy,  and  great  ambition  will  rise  up  as  they  have 
risen."  Generations  will  pass  on  the  swift  flight  of  years. 
Battle-storms  will  smite  the  earth,  peace  smile  upon  it, 
plenty  crown  it,  love  bless  it.  History  will  write  great 
chapters  in  the  book  of  time.  He  will  come  no  more. 
His  life  is  "  blended  with  the  mysterious  tide  which  bears 
upon  its  current "  events,  institutions,  empire,  in  the 
awful  sweep  of  destiny.  Nor  praise  nor  censure,  nor  love 
nor  hate,  "  nothing  can  touch  him  further." 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  33 1 

MEMORIAL    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  MARCH,   1879. 
ON  THE 

LIFE  AND  CHARACTER    OF  JULIAN  HARTRIDGE. 

(A   REPRESENTATIVE    FROM    GEORGIA.) 

Mr.  President  :  When  an  observance  like  this  occurs  in 
the  busy  hours  of  a  closing  session,  it  is  apt  to  seem  like  an 
idle  ceremony.  The  duties  of  public  life  are  so  varied 
and  pressing,  its  calls  so  incessant,  its  avocations  so  ab- 
sorbing, that  there  is  little  time  left  for  sentiment  or  the 
indulgence  of  grief. 

Our  numbers  are  constantly  changing  by  death  and  by 
the  vicissitudes  of  political  fortune  ;  but  the  leave-taking 
is  short,  and  the  business  of  to-morrow  will  make  the 
grief  of  to-day  only  a  memory.  "  The  'strong  hours  con- 
quer us."  It  will  be  so  when  we  shall  severally  disappear 
— even  those  of  you,  Senators,  who  play  the  greatest 
parts  on  this  great  stage.  The  actor  makes  his  exit ;  and 
however  well  he  may  have  performed  his  part,  whatever 
plaudits  he  may  have  won,  the  curtain  does  not  fall,  and 
the  play  goes  on. 

The  time  has  gone  by,  if  indeed  it  ever  was,  when  the 
loss  of  any  life  will  seriously  influence  the  permanent  di- 
rection of  public  affairs.  It  is  true  that  no  man's  place 
can  be  filled  by  another  ;  it  is  equally  true  that  it  is  not 
essential  it  should  be.  In  the  vast  aggregate  the  value 
of  the  largest  unit  is  scarcely  appreciable.  A  heart  has 
ceased  to  beat  ;  it  is  one  of  millions.  The  struggle  of  a 
life  has  ended  ;  the  struggle  of  human  life  never  ends. 
How  insignificant  is  the  individual  life  to  the  whole  of 
humanity  !  Yet  what  an  awful  gift  it  is  to  each  of  its 
possessors,  this  strange  personality  of  ours,  which  isolates 
us  from  all  else  and  yet  makes  all  that  is  a  part  of  us.  Nor 
sun,  nor  moon,  nor  stars,  nor  past,  nor  present  can  be, 
save  as  they  are  a  part  of  us. 


332  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Life  with  its  possibilities  is  an  awful  gift,  and  when  it 
is  bereft  the  event  is  unspeakably  solemn.  Custom  fami- 
liarizes us  with  the  forms  of  death,  fashion  hides  their 
significance  with  pageantry  ;  only  the  "  stricken  heart  of 
love  "  realizes  with  what  dark  eclipse  they  come.  It  is 
well  that  we  should  pause,  even  in  the  busiest  hours, 
when  a  comrade  falls,  not  more  as  a  mark  of  respect  for 
his  memory  than  to  receive  for  our  own  good  the  lesson 
of  his  life  and  death. 

The  memory  of  Julian  Hartridge  cannot  be  other 
than  a  priceless  possession,  even  in  their  sorrow,  to  those 
who  loved  him.  It  was  not  my  pleasure  to  know  him, 
but  by  order  of  the  Senate  I  was  one  of  the  committee 
which  attended  his  remains  from  this  Capitol  to  the 
beautiful  city  where  he  was  born,  where  he  was  married, 
where  his  children  were  born  to  him,  where  he  had  spent 
his  whole  life,  and  where  he  is  buried  with  his  fathers.  In 
that  community  which  had  known  him  all  the  days  of  his 
life,  all  his  outgoings  and  incomings,  I  felt  that  I  knew 
him  too.  There  was  a  tenderness  in  the  mention  of  his 
name  by  all  classes,  which  only  a  life  filled  with  tender 
respect  for  the  rights  and  feelings  of  others  could  have 
won.  There  was  a  warmth  of  expression  that  showed  how 
he  had  grappled  his  friends  with  hooks  of  steel.  There 
was  that  high  respect  which  is  only  conquered  by  a  life 
of  probity  and  courage. 

I  think  his  life  must  have  been  a  happy  one.  The  lines 
seem  to  me  to  have  fallen  to  him  in  pleasant  places.  No 
life  is  free  from  struggles,  trials,  temptations,  and  failures, 
of  which  the  world  little  knows,  and  the  deepest  scars  are 
within.  His  life  was  in  a  great  epoch.  It  marks  its  great 
transition,  that  the  slaves  who  had  borne  him  on  their 
backs  and  fondled  him  on  their  knees  in  his  childhood,  as 
free  men  tenderly  carried  his  body  to  the  grave ;  still 
loving  the  dear  young  master,  panoplied  in  American 
citizenship,  they  walked  beside  his  hearse.     His  lot  was 


POLITICAL   LIFE.  333 

cast  with  a  community  cultivated,  tasteful,  generous,  hos- 
pitable, and  self-respectful.  There  he  lived  for  fifty  years, 
and  dying  left  no  enemy  or  reproachful  friend.  Who  of 
us  can  desire  or  deserve  a  more  fragrant  memory  ? 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    IN   THE    SENATE   AND    HOUSE    OF  REPRESENTATIVES,    DECEMBER 
21    AND    22,    1876. 


LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF  ALLEN  T.  CAPERTON. 

(a  senator  from  west  Virginia). 

Mr.  President  :  We  have  paused  in  our  daily  labor, 
turned  aside  from  the  routine  of  business  and  from  the 
consideration  of  those  grave  questions  which  disturb  the 
public  mind  with  vague  alarm,  to  pay  tribute  of  respect  to 
one  who  in  his  brief  service  in  this  body,  by  his  kindness, 
courtesy,  and  frankness,  made  each  of  us  his  friend,  and 
who  discharged  his  public  duties  with  industry,  intelli- 
gence, fidelity,  and  honor. 

This  chamber  is  the  arena  of  intellectual  combat,  and 
when  the  great  monarch  drops  his  baton  the  conflict  of 
opinion  is  suspended. 

In  all  stations,  in  every  allotment  of  life,  it  is  well  that 
we  should  sometimes  be  brought  to  the  absolute  contem- 
plation of  death  and  the  realization  that  to  each  of  us  it  is 
inevitable  and  near.  The  days  of  our  life  are  numbered  ; 
at  each  sunset  there  is  one  less.  The  sands  of  our  life 
are  measured.     While  I  speak  they  are  wasting. 

Though  death  is  as  "  common  as  any,  the  most  vulgar 
thing  to  sense,"  though  it  hath  been  "  cried  from  the  first 
corse  till  he  that  died  to-day  '  this  must  be  so,'  "  it  still 
remains  the  great  mystery  whose  overshadowing  presence 
awes  us  into  a  sense  of  our  insignificance,  and  shows  us 
the  objects  of  our  pursuit  and  passionate  desire  in  their 
cold,  naked  reality.     And  this  is  its  office  to  the  living. 


334  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Not  lips  touched  with  the  fire  of  genius  can  so  solemnize 
us  to  a  sense  of  duty,  so  plead  for  the  right,  so  admonish 
us  of  the  vanity  of  human  expectation  as  the  dumb,  cold 
lips  of  the  dead.  Beneath  these  forms  and  trappings, 
beneath  this  covering  of  flesh,  our  skeletons  are  marching 
to  the  grave.  And  everything  on  earth  that  we  long  for, 
seek,  strive  for,  is  but  a  covered  skeleton.  Adorn  it  as 
we  may,  cheat  ourselves  as  we  will,  "  to  this  complexion 
it  must  come  at  last ;  "  and  then  dust  and  ashes. 

Six  months  ago,  if  Allen  Taylor  Caperton  had  entered 
this  chamber  and  passed  to  his  seat  it  would  have  been  a 
commonplace  incident,  as  little  noted  as  your  or  my 
coming  to-day.  If  he  should  enter  that  door  now,  what  an 
awe  would  fall  upon  us  all.  If  he  should  rise  at  his  desk  to 
speak,  with  what  rapt  suspense  we  should  listen.  Not  the 
most  eloquent  words  that  ever  fell  from  mortal  lips  could 
so  enchain  attention  as  the  lightest  syllable  from  his. 

Yet  if  he  could  come  back  from  the  "  undiscovered 
country "  and  speak  to  us  as  in  the  flesh,  do  we  not 
know  what  his  message  would  be  ?  Would  he  not  counsel 
peace  and  good  will  ?  Could  he  inculcate  a  higher  lesson 
than  that  taught  of  old,  that  "  righteousness  exalteth  a 
nation,"  that  "  error  shall  pass  away  like  a  shadow,  the 
truth  shall  endure  forever?"  Could  he  not  tell  us  that 
self-seeking  is  not  the  highest  wisdom,  that  safe  guidance 
is  not  found  in  passion,  and  that  institutions  can  neither 
be  built  nor  preserved  by  hatred  or  violence?  Could  he 
reveal  a  diviner  precept  than  "  love,"  a  more  sacred 
duty  than  "  charity  "  ?  If  it  has  been  permitted  him  to 
pass  in  review  the  procession  of  events  in  the  unnumbered 
ages  since  man  appeared  on  the  earth  and  to  realize  that 
history  has  but  begun,  that  in  the  curtained  future  there 
are  countless  ages  to  be,  could  he  not  tell  us  that  in  the 
grand  sweep  of  destiny  mere  personal  success,  the  pride  of 
place,  the  lust  of  power,  are  of  as  little  worth  as  the  foam 
on  the  river  ? 


POLITICAL  LIFE.  335 

This  is  the  message  from  the  dead  past  to  the  living 
present  ;  this  is  the  lesson  of  the  silent  centuries ;  this  is 
the  voice  from  the  grave  of  all  who  have  gone  before. 

Those  who  knew  Senator  Caperton  better  than  I  have 
already  spoken  of  the  traits  of  his  character  and  the 
incidents  of  his  life.  In  our  brief  acquaintance  he  im- 
pressed me  as  a  man  of  culture  and  refinement  ;  of  strong 
practical  sense,  impatient  with  what  he  regarded  as  ab- 
stractions, zealous  for  the  promotion  of  every  material 
interest,  and  devoted  to  a  reunion  of  hearts  and  hands 
through  all  the  land.  His  neighbors  told  me  he  was  a 
man  of  active  habits,  interested  in  every  enterprise  for 
the  advancement  and  improvement  of  the  country  where 
he  lived,  strong  in  his  convictions,  outspoken  in  his 
opinions,  steadfast  in  his  friendship,  and  of  bountiful 
hospitality. 

He  had  this  true  test  of  genuine  worth  :  his  character 
and  temper  softened  and  mellowed  with  years  and  experi- 
ence. Children  loved  him,  and  the  dumb  beast  regarded 
him  as  a  natural  protector. 

He  lived,  where  his  ancestors  had  for  several  genera- 
tions, in  a  region  of  great  beauty  of  landscape — a  high 
plateau,  with  mountain  peaks  in  the  distance,  with  inter- 
vales and  opening  vistas  of  surpassing  loveliness — off  the 
great  lines  of  travel,  and  where  the  stream  of  life  seemed 
to  eddy  into  a  quiet  circle.  It  was  a  spot  where  old 
customs  survive,  old  fashions  prevail,  and  old  faiths  are 
cherished.  From  his  beautiful  home,  through  the  broad 
English  lawn — almost  a  park — we  bore  his  remains  to  the 
village  church,  where  his  old  friends  and  neighbors  had 
gathered  from  all  the  country  round.  The  solemn  service 
for  the  dead  was  spoken.  We  followed  him  to  the  grave- 
yard on  the  hill  and  left  him  with  his  fathers. 

His  task  is  finished.  He  has  no  part  or  lot  in  all  that 
is  done  beneath  the  sun.  No  more  for  him  the  voice  of 
love,  the  song  of  gladness,   the  load   of  care,  the  cup  of 


336  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

sorrow.  Not  for  him  the  beauty  of  spring,  the  splendor 
of  summer,  the  glory  of  autumn,  the  uncrowned  majesty 
of  winter.  Flowers  will  spring  from  his  grave ;  storms 
will  beat  upon  it ;  morning  will  greet  it  with  her  earliest 
light,  night  crown  it  with  her  stars,  and  the  earth,  rolling 
in  her  great  orb  in  infinite  space,  will  bear  his  dust  with 
hers,  till  time  shall  be  no  more. 

Ah,  mystery  of  death,  and  greater  mystery  of  life ! 
Both  are  in  the  hand  of  Him  without  whose  knowledge 
not  a  sparrow  falls ;  obedience  to  whose  will  the  tides  of 
human  destiny  ebb  and  flow,  and  unto  whom  a  thousand 
years  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  gone,  or  a  watch  in 
the  night. 


CHAPTER   III. 

LECTURES. 


Destruction  of  Manuscript — Charles  James  Fox — Morals  and  Politics. 

In  the  seclusion  of  his  library,  contemplating  the  near 
approach  of  death,  Mr.  Booth  destroyed  a  large  mass  of 
manuscript,  including  his  voluminous  correspondence,  un- 
delivered lectures,  the  diary  kept  during  boyhood  and 
college  life,  and  his  notes  of  travel.  Such  destruction  was 
not  sudden  or  impulsive,  but  was  deliberate — continued 
for  weeks.  The  loss  thus  inflicted  is  a  public  one,  and  is 
much  regretted.  If  he  had  elected  to  edit  and  publish  his 
works,  instead  of  pursuing  the  course  he  did,  the  result 
would  have  been  a  much  larger  volume  than  this  of  con- 
tributions to  American  literature  of  permanent  value,  en- 
hanced by  touches  from  the  author's  own  hand,  and  by 
the  illuminating  power  of  his  fertile  and  active  mind. 

Of  the  lectures  given  herein,  that  upon  Charles  James 
Fox  is  perhaps  the  most  entertaining. 

No  connected  story  of  the  life  and  works  of  Fox  was 
extant,  and  the  lecturer  infused  into  his  effort  the  powers 
of  an  historian — the  crystallized  result  of  wide  reading, 
analytic  study,  clear  comprehension,  accurate  memory. 
The  illustrious  Englishman  was  the  brilliant,  fearless, 
powerful  advocate  in  the  English  Parliament  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  our  United  States  during  the  war  of  the 
Revolution.     It  may  be  that  Newton  Booth — living  with- 

337 


338  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

in  himself  sufficiently  to  be  capable  of  such  abstract  emo- 
tion and  impulse, — in  his  patriotism  and  out  of  a  sense  of 
appreciation  and  gratitude,  paid  this  enduring  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  a  great  man. 

It  is  an  enduring  tribute.  No  Englishman,  during  the 
three  quarters  of  a  century  that  had  elapsed  since  Fox 
died,  had  done  so  much  for  his  memory.  There  was  no 
biography  of  him  to  be  found.  That  by  the  descendant 
of  one  of  his  noted  contemporaries  was  published  "  only 
last  year."  The  lecture  is  comprehensive,  scholarly,  and 
brilliant.  The  personality  and  the  history  of  Fox  are 
merely  resplendent  central  jewels  in  a  setting  and  display 
redundant  with  gems  of  like  nature  fully  as  attractive. 

The  lecture  on  "  Morals  and  Politics  "  is  unique.  It 
embodies  a  philosophy,  emanates  a  warning,  inculcates 
principles  for  political  action — by  turns  excoriates,  in- 
structs, commands,  condemns.  It  flashes  forth  a  fierce 
light  beating  upon  his  individuality,  the  nature  of  his 
convictions,  the  motive  power  of  all  his  public  work. 

LECTURE  ON  THE  STEAM-ENGINE. 

JANUARY    17,    I854. 

A  great  work  in  literature  is  the  production  of  a  single 
and  unaided  intellect.  In  its  conception  and  execution 
there  is  exhibited  the  power  and  capacity  of  one  mind. 
It  is  true  that  all  the  teachings  of  the  past,  all  facts,  truths, 
and  experiences,  all  outward  forms,  everything  that  is,  aid 
the  development  of  genius  and  furnish  the  materials  for 
its  work.  But  as  the  silkworm  converts  the  leaves  that 
it  feeds  upon  into  its  own  beautiful  and  delicate  fibre,  so 
does  the  great  soul  transform  all  gross  substances  into 
the  threads  of  its  life,  the  fibres  of  its  being,  to  be  woven 
in  the  mysterious  texture  of  its  thought. 


LECTURES.  339 

A  blind  old  man  had  heard  the  story  of  the  siege  of 
Troy,  and  his  immortal  song  floating  above  the  storms  of 
time  has  come  down  to  us  over  the  graves  of  thirty  cen- 
turies. Shakespeare  had  read  a  childish  tale  about  a  bar- 
barous king  who,  in  his  old  age,  divided  his  kingdom 
between  two  deceitful,  treacherous  daughters  ;  a  third, 
who  loved  him,  he  loaded  with  his  curse,  and  she,  faithful 
in  her  love,  followed  his  evil  fortunes  to  the  grave.  And 
from  his  wonder-working  soul  came  Lear,  with  the  depths 
of  its  meaning  and  the  overshadowing  greatness  of  its 
thoughts — with  its  tenor  of  passion — ks  power,  language, 
delicacy  of  feeling,  tenderness  of  pathos,  and  sublimity  of 
description, — the  world's  masterpiece. 

We  cannot  penetrate  the  author's  being  and  watch  this 
gradual  process  of  mental  elaboration  as  it  goes  on  with- 
in the  man, — the  mind's  secret,  hidden  even  from  itself, 
by  which  this  miracle  is  wrought.  We  cannot  go  down 
into  the  silent  chambers  of  the  soul,  and  watch  the  spirit 
as  she  sits  in  her  high  solitude  weaving  her  web  of  thought ; 
it  is  only  when  the  work  is  finished,  a  radiant,  immortal 
vesture,  that  it  is  given  to  the  world,  as  the  highest  evi- 
dence of  man's  individual  greatness,  the  noblest  testimony 
that  the  hand  that  made  us  is  divine. 

Science  differs  from  literature  in  this,  that  the  former  is 
the  growth  of  ages — the  joint  contribution  of  myriads  of 
minds  engaged  in  the  investigation  of  the  same  subjects. 
No  single  mind  can  claim  exclusive  property  in  its  sys- 
tems ;  they  are  not  the  exponents  of  individual  ability, 
but  the  monuments  of  the  power  and  progress  of  the 
race. 

See  for  one  moment  the  illustration  of  the  truth  of  this 
in  the  history  of  the  progress  of  mathematics.  The  idea 
of  number  must  have  been  one  of  the  very  earliest  sug- 
gestions of  the  mind  ;  though  there  have  been  tribes  dis- 
covered so  deeply  sunken  in  barbarism  that  they  had  no 
means  of  counting  five,  and  to  express  more  than  this 


340  NEWTON  BOO  TIT. 

they  could  only  say,  "  a  great  many  "  ; — "  more  than  we 
can  number."  The  first  simple  computations  were 
made  with  the  aid  of  pebbles,  or  strings  of  beads,  and 
these  results  retained  by  piles  of  stones  and  by  knotted 
cords. 

How  many  minds  studied  and  worked  in  this  pure  de- 
partment of  human  inquiry,  what  slow  ages  of  progress 
went  by  before  Euclid  could  build  up  his  grand  arch  of 
dependent  truths.  Patient  labor  and  slow  investigation 
went  on  and  on.  At  length  was  made  that  high,  shall 
I  say  highest,  achievement  of  human  intellect,  the  grand- 
est because  the  simplest  production  of  art,  and  the  most 
wonderful  instrument  of  mental  labor-saving  machinery 
ever  conceived — the  invention  of  Arabic  numerals  and 
the  method  of  decimation,  by  which  ten  simple  characters 
are  made  to  express  all  that  the  mind  can  conceive  in 
number,  and  more — infinitely  more — for  what  understand- 
ing can  grasp  the  ideas  of  heavenly  distances  that  are 
held  perfect  in  these  transparent  symbols  !  How  do  their 
combinations  simplify  abstruse  questions  !  What  mazes 
of  doubt  and  difficulty  perplexing  and  bewildering  the 
mind  do  they  make  clear  as  noonday !  How  do  they 
hold  the  deductions  of  the  intellect  in  solution,  and  give 
them  back  again  to  the  mind  if  it  desires  their  use  in  a 
new  application  !  How  do  they  enter  into  and  make  easy 
the  business  and  traffic  of  life !  How  do  they  solve 
problems  which  had  else  baffled  forever  the  power  and 
ingenuity  of  reason — these  ten  simple  characters  that  the 
school-boy  scratches  upon  his  slate  ! 

And  still  the  work  went  on.  Old  achievements  were 
but  stepping-stones  to  new  principles  :  round  after  round 
was  added  to  the  ladder  by  which  the  mind  ascends,  until 
Newton  could  rise  to  that  high,  upper  air  of  intellectual 
abstraction  where  thought  crystallizes,  and  look  out  as 
through  a  mighty  dome  of  glass  upon  the  infinite  ;  until 
La  Place  could  encircle  and  environ  nature   and  life  and 


LECTURES.  34I 

art  with  the  pure  transparency  of  mathematical  reason. 
And  yet  the  science  of  numbers  and  quantities  is  still  in 
its  infancy,  and  it  will  continue  to  progress  and  develop 
while  the  soul  of  man  beats  with  the  pulse  of  aspiration. 

In  astronomy,  too,  how  slow  yet  how  wonderful  has 
been  the  growth.  Four  thousand  years  ago  the  Chaldean 
shepherds  watching  their  flocks  by  night  gazed  upon  the 
stars  and  rudely  sketched  the  constellations  in  the  sand. 
Forty  centuries  of  restless  human  inquiry  have  gone  by, 
and  now  astronomy  is  in  the  vigor  of  her  youth.  With 
telescopic  eye  her  vision  penetrates  the  far  depths  of 
heaven ;  by  the  aid  of  the  higher  principles  of  mathe- 
matics she  carries  the  chain  and  compass  through  the  far 
depths  of  space,  traces  the  planets  in  their  orbs,  weighs 
the  world  in  her  balance,  and  poises  the  universe  upon  its 
centre. 

See  chemistry  with  her  original  speculations  about  the 
four  elements,  her  doctrines  of  antagonism  and  election  ; 
see  her  afterward  with  her  philters,  her  spells  and  incan- 
tations, seeking  after  the  philosopher's  stone,  the  elixir  of 
life ;  still  growing  in  strength  and  gathering  truths,  until 
now  no  hidden  natural  process  is  safe  from  her  sleepless 
search.  She  carries  her  torch  into  the  darkness  of  mys- 
tery, brings  to  light  the  hidden  laws  of  unity  of  combina- 
tion, of  proportion  and  affinity,  and  enriches  the  arts 
with  the  secrets  of  the  great  laboratory  of  nature. 

In  medicine,  how  many  intellects  centre  within  and 
think  through  the  intelligent  physician  who  feels  your 
pulse.  He  is  heir  to  the  intellectual  wealth  of  a  long 
line  of  professional  ancestry,  reaching  back  to  the  days 
of  old  Hippocrates. 

Out  of  how  many  ages  of  experience  is  derived  the 
system  of  laws  administrated  in  our  courts. 

In  politics,  out  of  the  wrecks  of  how  many  splendid 
schemes  of  government  are  our  own  institutions  built. 
How  have  the  principles  of  constitutional  liberty  come 


342  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

down  to  us,  not  as  the  discoverers  of  isolated  intellect, 
but  as  the  hard  achievements  of  humanity — heirlooms 
from  a  thousand  battlefields — baptized  in  the  blood  of 
martyrs. 

In  the  development  of  science  it  is  not  alone  the  great 
and  the  wise  who  are  employed.  The  mass  of  facts  from 
which  her  principles  are  deduced  is  furnished  by  the 
unskilled — the  result  of  the  experience  of  every-day  life. 

In  literature  the  unity  of  one  mind  is  expressed.  In 
science  the  harmony  of  nature's  laws  is  discovered.  In 
literature  attainment  is  limited  by  the  stretch  and  inven- 
tion of  individual  power ;  the  domain  of  science  is  as 
boundless  as  the  universe  of  God,  and  fathomless  as  the 
powers  of  the  race  of  man. 

In  the  features  we  have  observed  the  fine  arts  bear  the 
same  relation  to  the  practical  or  mechanical  arts  that 
literature  does  to  science.  The  productions  of  the  first 
are  the  creations  of  the  mind,  those  of  the  latter  are  the 
application  of  the  forces  of  nature.  The  painter  or 
sculptor  embodies  his  own  idea  of  beauty,  gives  form  and 
being  to  the  conceptions  of  his  own  soul,  and  his  work  is 
the  exemplar  of  his  single-handed  power  and  the  witness 
of  his  individual  immortality.  The  mechanical  arts  are 
the  fruits  of  the  world's  experience, — the  energies  of 
humanity  pushing  out  to  a  full  and  free  development,  the 
triumphs  of  want  over  necessity,  and  they  are  the  symbols 
of  the  power  and  the  types  of  the  destiny  of  our  race. 
The  one  is  like  the  dewdrop  of  the  morning,  beautiful 
with  the  colors  of  the  rainbow  ;  the  other  is  like  the 
swelling  march  of  the  billows  of  the  sea — resistless.  The 
grandest  representative  of  these,  the  noblest  symbol  of 
man's  power,  the  truest  type  of  his  destiny,  is  that  highest 
achievement  of  mind  over  matter — the  steam-engine. 

In  the  early  ages  of  history  men  led  roving  lives,  living 
without  culture  and  with  but  little  exertion.  The  spon- 
taneous fruits  of  the  earth,  the  fishes  of  the  river,  and  the 


LECTURES,  343 

wild  animals  of  the  forest  supplied  them  with  food,  and 
the  skins  of  the  latter  furnished  them  with  clothing. 
Their  first  inventions  were  those  of  prime  necessity  to 
supply  natural  wants.  They  were  rude  and  simple.  The 
bow  and  arrow,  the  sling,  a  wooden  spear  pointed  with 
bone  or  flint,  a  few  utensils  of  cookery,  a  boat  made  from 
the  body  of  a  tree  hollowed  out  with  fire,  and  one  or  two 
barbarous  instruments  of  music.  And  these  first  inven- 
tions of  barbarous  life  were  the  beginnings — the  germs 
from  which  have  arisen  the  wonder-working  implements 
and  world-wide  appliances  of  modern  art. 

From  the  bow  and  arrow,  the  sling  and  wooden  spear, 
as  a  natural  sequence,  as  a  logical  deduction,  we  have  those 
terrible  engines  of  destructiveness  that  belong  to  warfare 
now.  From  the  spit  and  earthen  kettle  we  have  the  com- 
plicated arrangements  of  our  kitchen-craft.  Every  step  of 
improvement  can  be  distinctly  traced  from  the  awkward, 
round-bottomed  canoe,  to  the  majestic  clipper  with  her 
beautiful  proportions  that  sweeps  upon  the  wings  of  the 
wind  like  a  very  creature  of  the  elements.  From  the 
pencil  reed  and  raw-hide  drum  we  have  the  flute  with  its 
soft  cadences,  the  violin  with  its  fairy  strains,  and  the 
grand-tuned  organ  with  its  swelling  power  and  solemn 
pomp  of  sound. 

In  the  history  of  civilization,  as  the  race  of  man  increased 
in  number  the  chase  came  to  afford  but  an  uncertain  and 
precarious  subsistence,  and  wild  animals  were  tamed, 
domesticated,  and  driven  in  herds  from  place  to  place 
for  the  convenience  of  pasturage  and  water.  Pastoral  life, 
of  which  we  have  such  beautiful  pictures  in  Oriental 
literature,  succeeded  to  barbarism.  Fleeces  were  used  in 
place  of  skins  to  supply  clothing.  The  distaff  was  in- 
vented, and  garments  were  woven  or  rather  knit  by  hand. 
Through  the  thousands  of  years  that  have  gone  by  since, 
this  idea  has  been  developing  and  unfolding,  and  its 
present  maturity  can  be  seen  in  the  machinery  of  Lowell 


344  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

and  Manchester — all  of  which  is  but  the  growth  of  the 
spinning-wheel. 

The  next  step  in  civilization  was  from  nomadic  pastoral 
life  to  agriculture.  In  order  to  meet  growing  demands  it 
was  found  necessary  to  cultivate  wild  fruits  and  grains  to 
increase  their  productiveness  and  improve  their  quality. 
The  soil  must  be  tilled.  The  first  rude  artificers  in  metals 
commenced  the  manufacture  of  clumsy  instruments  for 
working  the  earth ;  and  these  first  awkward  tools  made 
from  metals  were  the  germs  which,  after  centuries  upon 
centuries,  have  flowered  in  the  operations  of  Sheffield 
and  Birmingham. 

As  the  number  of  men  still  increased,  these  early  simple 
methods  of  life  failed  to  yield  them  a  subsistence,  while 
new  desires  were  stimulated  into  activity.  Thus  by 
"necessity's  sharp  pinch  "  man  was  driven  in  upon  him- 
self— upon  the  resources  of  his  reason.  He  must  conquer 
from  nature  the  tribute  she  refused  to  yield.  He  asserted 
his  prerogative  as  master  of  the  universe.  The  elements 
became  the  slaves  of  his  will,  natural  forces  were  pressed 
into  his  service  to  bear  his  burdens  and  to  do  his  toil. 
And  this  was  the  dawning  of  the  era  of  mechanical  power, 
whose  first  rude  device  was  the  awkward  wind-mill,  the 
crowning  conquest  of  whose  glory  is  the  steam-engine. 

Thus  is  it  in  the  moral  as  in  the  natural  world, 
great  results  are  the  effect  of  gradual  development  and 
slow  growth.  The  neglected  acorn  springs  up  into  the 
giant  oak,  but  it  requires  centuries  to  unfold  the  vitality 
wrapped  up  within  the  germ.  The  knowledge  of  truth  is 
such  a  germ.  Cast  into  the  rich  waxen  soil  of  humanity, 
its  powers  unfold  through  the  still  lapse  of  ages — it  sends 
its  roots  abroad — its  trunk  springs  up — up — through  the 
thousands  of  years  of  history,  until  its  branches  wave 
among  the  stars,  and  its  golden  fruit  shines  in  the  gardens 
of  Hesperides.  And  this  is  that  great  law  of  progress 
everywhere  illustrated — from  the  lowest  plant  of  earth,  to 


LECTURES.  345 

the  mightiest  seen  in  space — from  the  meanest  animalculae 
that  die  with  the  first  breath  of  their  being,  to  the  soul 
of  man  rejoicing  in  the  strength  of  immortality. 

Thus  is  it,  too,  that  the  great  results  of  life  are  not, the 
attainment  of  exalted  individual  endowment.  They  are 
the  growths  of  time — the  quality  of  the  race — the  fruits 
of  universal  humanity,  to  whose  production  the  highest 
and  humblest  have  alike  contributed.  And  this  is  a  high 
teaching  of  equality — a  seal  of  universality — a  revelation 
that  the  same  rights  and  privileges  belong  to  all — God's 
signet  attesting  the  divine  doctrine  of  democracy. 

It  is  a  favorite  hypothesis  with  some  that  the  power  of 
steam  was  known  to  the  ancient  Egyptians,  and  used  by 
them  in  the  construction  of  their  pyramids  and  temples. 
There  is  no  direct  evidence  bearing  upon  the  question ; 
the  argument  in  favor  of  the  supposition  is,  that  we  do 
not  now  know  of  any  other  force  sufficiently  great  to 
accomplish  such  stupendous  results. 

The  earliest  authentic  account  that  we  have  of  the 
application  of  steam  as  a  mechanical  power,  is  in  the 
works  of  Hero  of  Alexandria,  who  lived  about  a  century 
before  the  Christian  era,  and  he  speaks  of  it  rather  as 
known  fact  than  a  new  discovery.  Its  principle,  probably 
its  only  application  then,  was  in  accomplishing  the  pre- 
tended miracles  of  priestcraft.  Its  power  was  unknown 
to  the  populace,  and  by  its  hidden  agency  inanimate 
figures  were  made  to  move  around  the  altar  during  the 
hour  of  sacrifice,  sending  forth  mysterious  sounds. 

It  is  probable  that  during  the  Middle  Ages  ingenious 
steam  toys  were  frequently  constructed,  whose  only  ob- 
ject was  to  excite  wonder  and  curiosity.  The  intellect  of 
these  times  was  too  much  taken  up  in  the  discussion  of  the 
transcendental  nothingness  of  nominalism  and  realism  to 
descend  to  the  investigation  of  anything  having  a  practical 
bearing  and  substantial  interest.  Great  men  then  had  to 
settle  the  question  whether  an  angel  could  be  translated 


346  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

from  one  planet  to  another  without  passing  through  in- 
termediate space, — and  whether  two  spirits  could  occupy 
the  same  place  at  the  same  time. 

Early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Solomon  De  Cours, 
a  Frenchman,  used  the  power  of  steam  in  the  construction 
of  artificial  fountains  in  the  gardens  of  Charles  the  First, 
of  England,  then  Prince  of  Wales.  He  also  published  a 
translation  of  the  writings  of  Hero  upon  pneumatics. 

Edward  Somerset,  the  Marquis  of  Worcester,  an  English- 
man who  lived  about  fifty  years  afterwards,  was  the  first 
to  comprehend  and  appreciate  the  power  and  capabilities 
of  this  wonderful  element.  He  was  the  inventor  of  a 
steam-engine  which  he  called  "  the  semi-omnipotent  ma- 
chine," about  which  he  says :  "  I  do  intend  a  model  of  it 
shall  be  buried  with  me."  Certainly  there  could  be  no 
nobler  symbol  of  the  soul.  The  Rosicrucian  lamp  that 
was  to  burn  forever  in  the  tomb  compared  to  this  was  as 
"  a  rush  light  to  the  sun." 

During  the  next  hundred  years,  a  number  of  practical 
improvements  were  made  in  the  steam-engine,  but  it  still 
remained  a  very  expensive  power  and  could  only  be  used 
when  fuel  was  exceedingly  cheap.  The  principal  service 
it  rendered  was  in  the  pumping  of  water  from  coal  mines. 
During  all  this  time,  the  real  power  employed  was  that  of 
atmospheric  pressure,  and  steam  was  only  used  in  creating 
a  vacuum. 

About  the  year  1760,  the  immortal  Watt  constructed 
the  modern  steam-engine,  bringing  the  action  of  steam 
directly  to  bear,  and  dispensing  with  the  atmospheric 
pressure. 

And  now  that  mysterious  power  which  had  originally 
been  used  to  assist  in  the  juggleries  of  priestcraft — then 
to  excite  the  wonder  of  the  ignorant — to  adorn  the  pleas- 
ure grounds  of  a  prince — the  sphere  of  whose  utility  had 
been  confined  for  a  hundred  years  to  the  pumping  of  water 
from  mines, — became  at  once  the  giant  agent  of  modern 


LECTURES.  347 

civilization,  turning  the  current  of  history,  and  shaping 
the  destiny  of  humanity. 

Less  than  a  hundred  years  have  gone  by  since  the 
invention  of  the  modern  steam-engine,  yet  it  has  revolu- 
tionized the  arts  of  peace,  as  the  invention  of  gunpowder 
did  the  art  of  war.  In  its  myriads  of  forms  of  application 
to  the  manufactures,  railroads,  the  printing-press,  in- 
ternal and  ocean  navigation,  it  has  permeated  every  in- 
terest, is  witnessed  in  every  phase  of  our  existence.  It 
has  become  "  semi-omnipotent,"  breathing  the  breath  of 
life  into  forms  inanimate  ;  it  is  to-day  the  mighty  heart 
beating  beneath  the  world's  policy,  felt  in  every  quickening 
pulse  of  industry  and  life. 

It  is  the  expansive  power  of  steam  that  has  subdued 
the  wilderness  of  our  country — steam  that  binds  our 
widespread  population  into  one  nation — steam  is  the 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  Young  America  with  which  she 
will  accomplish  her  manifest  destiny.  It  is  steam  that  is 
thundering  at  the  gates  of  Oriental  exclusiveness — steam 
is  to  open  the  magnificent  valley  of  the  Amazon  to  cul- 
tivation, redeem  the  lost  paradise  of  Central  America, 
build  up  great  nations  in  Australia,  upon  the  western 
slopes  of  the  Andes  and  Sierra  Nevada,  and  develop  upon 
the  Pacific  a  commerce  worthy  of  the  sea  of  seas ;  upon 
the  wings  of  that  commerce  it  will  carry  the  teachings  of 
Christianity  and  doctrines  of  democracy  "  to  the  isles  of 
the  sea  and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  " — for  steam 
is  the  world's  great  missionary  power  and  highest  apostle 
of  freedom.  In  view  of  the  influence  of  the  steam-engine 
in  the  first  hundred  years  of  its  existence,  who  shall  set 
bounds  to  its  effect  in  the  cycles  of  future  history. 
Through  the  invention  of  Ericsson,  its  legitimate  off- 
spring, or  through  some  other  means  it  will  become  so 
cheap  a  power  that  it  will  be  used  upon  every  farm,  in 
the  simplest  mechanical  contrivances,  and  make  a  part 
of  the  furniture  of  every  extensive  household.     Through 


348  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

improvements  already  indicated  in  ocean  navigation  and 
by  increased  railroad  facilities  it  will  become  so  great  a 
power  that  it  will  weld  sentiments  together,  cement 
nations,  melt  the  world  into  one  people  having  one 
policy — universal  peace  and  unrestricted  free  trade. 

But  behind  all  this  there  arises  a  great  question,  upon 
the  answer  to  which  depends  the  character  of  the  ul- 
timate influence  of  steam,  whether  it  be  evil  or  whether  it 
be  good,  and  that  is  the  effect  it  produces  upon  social 
inequality. 

It  is  contended  by  many  that  the  necessary  tendency 
of  labor-saving  machinery  is  towards  the  accumulation  of 
capital  and  degradation  of  labor,  that  it  makes  the  poor 
poorer  and  the  rich  richer,  increases  social  distinctions, 
multiplies  caste,  and  exalts  one  portion  of  society  at  the 
expense  of  another.  And  indeed  so  far  is  the  argument 
pressed  that  it  is  actually  gravely  asked  whether  it  is 
better  to  be  a  slave  to  the  necessity  to  daily  toil  in  the 
world's  manufacturing  capitals,  or  to  the  caprice  of  a 
master  who  buys  and  sells  the  thews  and  sinews  of 
manhood. 

By  the  invention  of  the  modern  steam-engine  alone  it  is 
fair  to  assume  that  the  productive  capacity  of  the  world 
has  been  more  than  doubled,  yet  want  still  exists  gaunt 
as  ever,  misery  is  unalleviated,  penury  the  universal 
dread,  and  the  opportunities  for  high  mental  culture  the 
prize  of  the  few,  not  the  free  gift  to  all.  That  there  is  a 
dark  wrong  somewhere  in  our  social  organization  is  but 
too  true.  We  cannot  ignore  it  if  we  would.  It  meets  us 
every  hour  of  our  life.  It  stares  us  in  the  face  in  a  hun- 
dred varying  forms — in  individual  deprivations,  in  ill- 
requited  labor,  in  the  degradations  of  service,  in  crimes 
instigated  by  want ;  in  our  own  country ;  in  the  necessity 
for  strikes,  combinations,  and  trade  unions  ;  in  Europe, 
in  the  restlessness  of  the  masses  and  the  volcanic  upheav- 
ing of  revolutionary  fires.     It  is  the  unbidden  guest  that 


LECTURES.  349 

shakes  its  gory  locks  at  the  world's  feasts,  thrusts  us  from 
our  stools,  and  will  not  down  at  our  bidding.  While  the 
laws  of  production  are  intensely  active,  the  principles  of 
distribution  are  intensely  unjust.  True  history,  however, 
teaches  us  that  this  injustice  is  neither  caused  nor  aggra- 
vated by  labor-saving  machinery.  The  man  who  toils 
to-day  for  his  daily  bread  without  the  use  of  capital  may 
enjoy  privileges  that  wealth  could  not  buy  two  hundred 
years  ago.  Written  history  too  often  preserves  only 
the  beautiful  pictures  of  the  past,  and  leaves  the  dark 
side  of  humanity — the  shadows  of  life — without  a  record 
or  a  witness.  We  know  well,  however,  that  when  art  ex- 
isted only  in  its  crude  conceptions,  the  laborer  himself  was 
a  mere  machine,  not  recompensed  for  his  toil,  but  barely 
sustained  that  his  body  might  be  kept  in  working  condition. 
Every  aspiration  of  his  soul  was  crushed  beneath  an  iron 
fate.  No  hope  of  a  kinder  future  cheered  him.  Death 
was  the  only  relief  from  the  house  of  his  bondage. 

Go  to  the  East,  to  China  and  Japan,  where  labor-saving 
machinery  is  comparatively  unknown,  where  the  hands 
alone  must  perform  life's  heavy  tasks,  and  see  how  the 
millions  are  crushed  to  the  earth  by  the  grievous  load 
they  bear.  There  the  law  of  caste  is  as  inexorable  as  the 
law  of  fate,  and  its  slightest  infringement  inevitable  death. 

The  feudal  system,  with  its  dark  oppression  of  the 
masses,  has  been  destroyed  by  the  progress  of  art  in  its 
application  to  commerce  and  manufactures.  Entails,  long 
terms,  and  secret  uses  are  dying  out  from  the  operation  of 
the  same  causes.  Commercial  restrictions,  fetters  upon 
trade,  and  land  monopoly  must  yield  to  the  same  benefi- 
cent influence.  Slavery  in  every  form  must  eventually 
disappear  before  the  progress  of  inventive  power,  for 
servile  labor  can  not  be  applied  to  the  highest  employ- 
ment of  art ;  and  in  the  future  perfection  of  art  the  nation 
that  is  not  armed  with  all  its  implements  can  no  more 
meet  one  that  is,  in  the  competitions  of  peace,  than  could 


350  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

an  army  of  barbarians  with  their  war  clubs  and  bows  and 
arrows  stand  before  the  thundering  charge  of  Napoleon's 
old  guard. 

Great  inventions,  the  offspring  of  democratic  principle 
are  always  democratic,  equalizing  in  their  tendency.  God's 
great  gifts  dispense  their  blessings  unto  all,  and  the  higher 
man  arises  in  creative  power  the  more  do  his  works  re- 
semble God's  in  that  highest  quality — universality.  What 
a  sun  to  the  whole  human  race  is  the  printing-press ! 
What  a  mighty  precursor  in  human  progress  is  the  steam- 
engine  !  How  do  barriers  that  rose  like  Alps  in  its  path- 
way go  down  before  the  tread  of  this  giant  leveller  !  How 
do  deluding  errors,  the  frightful  chimeras  of  darkness, 
vanish  into  thin  air  before  the  breath  of  its  fiery  nostrils ! 

These  are  but  the  forerunners  of  inventions  to  come 
after  them,  whose  shoes  they  are  not  worthy  to  unlatch. 
Nature  has  yet  myriads  of  secrets  undisclosed.  Art  is 
still  in  its  infancy,  nor  will  it  attain  perfection  until  it 
shall  appropriate  and  embody  all  the  undiscovered,  inex- 
haustible forces  of  nature,  become  the  perfect  representa- 
tive of  the  outward  world — man's  creation  reproducing 
God's.  Then  will  the  means  of  production  become  so 
simple,  so  cheap,  so  entire,  they  will  be  within  the  reach 
of  all ;  life's  blessings  will  be  as  incapable  of  monopoly  as 
God's  great  gifts,  the  sunshine  and  the  air,  and  social 
privileges  be  as  free  as  the  offers  of  His  mercy. 

Contrast  for  one  moment  man  as  he  was — the  child  of 
nature,  and  as  he  is — the  master  of  art.  See  him  at  his 
original  creation,  when  his  own  right  arm  was  the  sole 
representative  of  his  energy  and  power.  The  earth 
spread  around  him  full  of  dreary  deserts  and  interminable 
wildernesses,  mountains  reared  to  the  clouds  their  rocky 
barriers  above  him,  the  ocean  stretched  out  impassably 
before  him,  the  stars  from  their  immeasurable  heights 
looked  down  in  mockery  upon  his  existence.  Less  fav- 
ored than  the  animals,  he  had  no  instinct  to  guide  him,  no 


LECTURES.  351 

natural  protection  against  winter's  cold  and  summer's 
heat.  The  elements  were  at  war  with  his  person,  the  wild 
beasts  sought  his  destruction,  hunger  was  his  hourly  craving, 
disease  his  portion,  weakness  his  nature,  want  his  life.  Poor, 
frail  wanderer,  alone  in  the  immensity  of  creation,  what 
was  there  left  for  him  but  to  die,  and  let  the  winds  and 
the  rains  beat  out  the  impress  of  his  footsteps  ! 

Behold  him  now.  He  has  subdued  nature  and  made 
the  elements  the  creatures  of  his  will.  The  desert  blooms 
and  the  wilderness  is  made  glad  at  his  touch.  The  sea 
sends  its  broad-backed  waves  to  his  feet  to  bear  his  bur- 
dens. Nature's  great  power,  clothed  with  the  strength 
and  terror  of  a  thousand  thunders,  is  his  patient,  humble 
slave.  He  says  to  the  lightnings,  "  Go,"  and  they  go,  the 
winds  do  his  bidding  and  minister  to  his  pleasure.  Great 
thoughts  are  breathing  to  him  from  all  the  past,  high 
voices  calling  to  him  from  the  future.  The  enchantments 
of  art  are  around  him.  Strains  of  music  charm  his  spirit 
away  over  the  elysian  fields  of  fancy  to  the  secret  halls  of 
melody.  His  searching  eyes  look  down  into  the  dark 
mysteries  of  the  earth  and  her  secrets  are  as  plain  to  him 
as  an  open  book.  He  sends  his  rapt  soul  through  the 
mysteries  of  the  stars,  his  spirit  walks  at  home  amid  the 
high  courts  of.  heaven,  sits  down  in  the  council  chambers 
of  the  gods,  and  reads  the  laws  of  the  universe.  "  How 
infinite  in  faculties,  how  noble  in  reason,  in  form  and 
movement  how  express  and  admirable !  In  action  how 
like  an  angel ;  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god  !  " 

LECTURE  ON   THE   SPIRITUAL. 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  FIRST  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH,  SACRAMENTO, 
OCT.   28,   1863. 

A  Scotchman  who  was  asked  the  definition  of  meta- 
physics, made  this  answer :  "  When  the  speaker  din  na 
ken  what  he  speaks,  and  the  hearer  din  na  understand 
what  he  hears  ;  that 's  metaphysics." 


352  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

I  believe  that  this  definition  expresses  a  popular  idea 
of  the  science  of  mind  or  the  laws  of  spiritual  action.  It 
is  quite  generally  believed  that  when  one  commences  the 
investigation  of  mental  phenomena,  he  leaves  the  domain 
of  the  actual,  the  positive,  and  enters  a  region  of  vague 
shadows  and  unrealities — a  region  of  ghosts,  hobgoblins, 
and  chimeras,  where  the  sunlight  of  reason  is  no  longer 
his  guide,  and  even  the  twilight  of  the  imagination  gives 
place  to  the  weird  starlight  of  dreams.  Pity  for  the 
wanderer  on  this  "  Plutonian  shore."  He  is  given  over 
to  a  kind  of  mild  insanity  ;  he  peoples  the  airy  nothing 
with  the  bodiless  creatures  of  his  fancy  ;  the  objects  of 
his  pursuit  are  the  very  specters  of  thought,  less  real  than 
the  mirage  of  the  desert,  but  the  shadows  of  a  shade,  the 
dreams  of  a  dream. 

In  contradistinction  from  this,  it  is  assumed  that  in  the 
study  of  material  things  and  physical  forces  we  stand  upon 
the  sure  and  firm-set  earth.  Here  we  are  dealing  with  the 
objects  of  sense  that  the  understanding  can  take  hold  of. 
Here  men  can  exercise  their  sober  faculties,  theories  can 
be  verified  by  experiment,  speculation  can  be  tested  by 
trial.  Matter  is  a  verity,  a  positive  existence — it  is  a  sub- 
stance, it  has  form  and  color — it  can  be  seen,  touched, 
handled,  weighed,  divided,  analyzed  ;  and  the  physical 
sciences  are  not  the  air-built  castles  of  the  brain,  but  solid 
structures  of  the  masonry  of  fact. 

And  yet,  if  it  be  not  to  consider  the  subject  too  curi- 
ously, it  may,  perhaps,  appear  that  the  mystery  of  matter 
is  as  great  as  the  mystery  of  mind.  If  the  soul  be  that 
strange  being  in  the  universe  which  like  the  eye  cannot 
see  itself,  and  if  creation  has  no  mirror  that  can  reveal  its 
unearthly  lineaments,  matter  is  the  very  Proteus  whose 
ultimate  form  eludes  our  sharpest  search,  whose  essence 
baffles  the  sense,  escapes  the  power  of  retort  and  crucible, 
whose  highest  mystery  its  union  with  the  spirit,  its  dark 
upbuilding  in  this  clay  tenement  around  the  flashing  light 


LECTURES.  353 

of  the  soul,  its  strange  blending  with  and  tempering  of  the 
fires  of  thought,  is  not  more  past  finding  out  than  are  its 
lower  offices  as  seen  in  vegetable  growth  and  mineral 
crystallization,  and  that  even  its  very  existence  is  a  thing 
to  be  inferred,  not  realized  or  understood. 

Matter  you  say  has  color,  weight,  form,  extension.  But 
what  is  the  color  of  the  air?  Will  you  give  me  a  pound 
of  electricity,  or  a  gallon  of  light,  or  a  cubic  foot  of  mag- 
netism ?  Matter  the  object  of  sense?  Touch  a  needle 
with  the  magnet ;  how  does  it  acquire  polarity  ?  Why 
point  true  to  its  mysterious  attraction,  the  chambers  of 
the  north  ?  The  magnet  loses  no  weight,  no  quality  ; 
nay,  like  virtue,  its  force  is  increased  by  the  power  it  im- 
parts ;  like  charity,  giving  increases  its  abundance.  How 
does  the  click  of  the  telegraph  repeat  itself  instantly  thou- 
sands of  miles  away  ?  Can  material  forces  be  measured 
and  estimated  ? 

You  have  just  listened  to  a  beautiful  piece  of  music. 
You  were  made  conscious  of  its  sounds  by  vibrations  of 
the  atmosphere ;  its  notes  rippled  through  the  air,  and 
broke  in  melody  on  your  ears.  So  soft  was  the  motion 
the  floating  mote  was  not  stirred  by  it,  and  yet  that  ripple 
of  the  air  which  did  not  move  the  flame  of  the  gas,  pulsed 
through  these  solid  walls  and  fell  upon  ears  outside. 

If  a  stringed  instrument  attuned  in  unison  with  an 
organ  be  suspended  to  it,  it  will  echo  every  note  the  organ 
sounds,  even  as  the  chords  of  the  human  heart  answer  in 
sympathy  when  some  great  master  like  Patrick  Henry,  or 
Clay,  or  Cicero,  sweeps  with  magic  touch  the  lyre  of  feel- 
ing and  passion.  Why  is  it  that  the  deep  sound  which 
moves  the  heavy  chord  will  not  stir  the  finer  one,  but  that 
too  answers  only  when  its  own  key-note  is  struck? 

There  is    a  form    of    matter    compared    to  which  the 

atmosphere  seems  solid,  and  electricity  gross.     As  sound 

passes  through  the  air  by  airy  waves  that  strike  upon  the 

ear,  so  there  is  diffused  through  all  the  universe  a  sub- 
23 


354  '      NEW  TON  BOOTH. 

stance  called  by  natural  philosophers  ether,  by  whose 
undulations  light  falls  upon  the  eye,  and  we  are  made 
conscious  of  the  visible  word.  Sound  moves  by  undula- 
tions of  the  air  sixty-three  thousand  feet  in  a  minute.  The 
undulations  of  ether  carry  light  two  hundred  thousand 
miles  a  second,  twelve  million  miles  a  minute.  They  pass 
through  the  air,  through  glass,  through  the  diamond, 
through  the  pupil  of  the  eye  and  break  upon  the  most 
delicate  nerve  of  our  system  so  gently  they  occasion  no 
pain,  but  bear  to  the  soul  the  exquisite  sense  of  the  beauti- 
ful. A  scarlet-colored  object  causes  four  hundred  and 
seventy-five  million  millions  of  these  undulations  to  fall 
upon  the  retina  of  the  eye  in  a  second  ;  a  violet  color 
seven  hundred  million  of  millions. 

In  the  open  pipe  of  an  organ,  thirty-two  feet  long,  the 
reed  vibrates  sixteen  and  a  half  times  in  a  second,  making 
that  note  C,  which  is  the  deepest  tone  in  music.  In  a  pipe 
half  as  long,  sixteen  feet,  the  vibrations  are  twice  as  rapid, 
thirty-three  to  the  second,  and  the  note  is  one  octave  higher. 
Thus  the  pitch  of  the  note  depends  upon  the  number  of 
the  undulations  of  the  air  that  strike  upon  the  ear  in  a 
given  period.  Twenty-four  thousand  vibrations  in  a  second 
produce  the  highest  appreciable  note ;  seven  and  three 
quarters  the  lowest  audible  sound,  and  within  this  range 
all  musical  tones  are  made.  In  the  same  manner,  if  an 
object  sends  four  hundred  and  seventy-five  million  millions 
undulations  of  ether  to  the  retina  of  your  eye  in  a  second, 
you  are  made  conscious  of  the  color  of  scarlet ;  seven  hun- 
dred million  of  millions  make  violet  visible,  and  between 
these  limits  all  other  colors  are  formed.  The  light  of  the 
sun  reaches  the  earth  in  about  eight  minutes,  travelling 
ninety-five  million  miles.  It  requires  ten  years  for  the  light 
of  some  of  the  brightest  fixed  stars  to  reach  us.  Through 
a  telescope,  stars  of  the  twelfth  magnitude  can  be  seen, 
whose  light  travelled  four  thousand  years  before  it  falls 
upon  the  eye.     These  undulations  of  ether,  rolling  two 


LECTURES.  355 

hundred  thousand  miles  a  second  for  four  thousand  years, 
pass  through  the  earth's  atmosphere,  through  the  lens  of 
the  telescope,  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder,  and  reveal  what 
seems  to  be  a  point  of  fire,  what  is  a  central  sun.  The 
mind  sinks  in  the  contemplation  of  such  distance,  as  in 
the  presence  of  the  idea  of  eternity.  But  if  you  could 
stand  upon  that  sun,  there  are  stars,  so  far  beyond  it,  their 
light,  travelling  since  the  creation's  morn,  had  not  reached 
that  point ;  and  all  the  interstellar  space  is  radiant  with 
revolving  worlds,  suns,  and  starry  systems.  These  worlds, 
suns,  systems,  galaxies,  all  float  in  this  boundless,  shore- 
less sea  of  ether,  seven  hundred  million  millions  of  whose 
waves  can  break  upon  the  retina  of  the  eye  in  a  second  of 
time.  This  impalpable,  ineffable  ether,  is  as  truly  matter 
as  is  the  solid  granite  or  the  rock-ribbed  earth,  and  you 
know  as  much  of  it  as  you  do  absolutely  of  matter  in  its 
most  familiar  forms. 

Examine  for  a  few  moments  the  qualities  of  matter  in 
its  forms  that  are  most  familiar  to  the  sense.  Take  a  bar 
of  steel ;  it  weighs,  we  say,  ten  pounds.  Place  above  it  a 
magnet  of  a  given  power,  it  weighs  but  half  as  much  ;  in- 
crease the  power  of  the  magnet,  it  weighs  nothing.  Why  ? 
By  its  weight  you  simply  express  the  amount  of  the  earth's 
influence  over,  it,  an  influence  that  can  be  counteracted  by 
one  similar  in  quality,  but  of  more  intense  concentration 
existing  in  the  magnet.  The  earth  can  be  considered  a 
great  magnet,  drawing  to  its  centre  all  terrestial  objects. 
Weight,  then,  is  not  a  property  that  belongs  to  the  bar  of 
steel  in  itself.  If  the  earth  were  four  times  as  dense,  the 
steel  would  weigh  four  times  as  much ;  if  the  matter  of 
the  sun  were  condensed  into  the  size  of  the  earth,  and  the 
ten-pound  bar  of  steel  placed  upon  its  surface,  it  would 
there  weigh  three  million  five  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds.  Placed  equally  distant  between  two  worlds  of 
the  same  size  and  density,  it  would  remain  suspended, 
poised  in  mid  air.     Of  themselves,  objects  have  no  weight ; 


356  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

it  requires  the  presence  of  another  body  of  matter  to  de- 
velop this  quality.  The  weight  of  any  sublunary  object 
is  simply  the  amount  of  attraction  between  it  and  the 
globe.  The  weight  of  the  moon  is  its  tendency  to  gravi- 
tate to  the  earth  ;  the  weight  of  the  earth  is  its  tendency 
to  gravitate  to  the  sun  ;  the  weight  of  the  sun  is  its  ten- 
dency to  gravitate  to  the  great  centre  of  our  starry  sys- 
tem ;  and  if  you  weigh  a  barrel  of  flour  or  a  pound  of 
sugar,  you  simply  determine  its  exact  relation  to  the  great 
law  that  runs  through  all  the  worlds,  which  is  the  harmony 
of  the  universe,  the  key-note  of  the  creation. 

Of  what  single  essential  property  of  matter  do  our  senses 
give  us  any  absolute  knowledge  ?  You  have  a  black,  granu- 
lated mass  which  you  call  gunpowder.  You  can  see  it, 
feel  it,  weigh  it ;  it  is  ugly,  passive,  inert ;  touch  it  with 
fire — in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  it  becomes  air ;  its  vol- 
ume is  increased  four  hundred  and  fifty  times — its  expan- 
sive force  equals  forty-eight  thousand  pounds  to  the  square 
inch.  Pile  mountains  upon  it,  and  it  rends  its  way  like  a 
risen  earthquake  ;  a  moment  after  this  volcanic  display  of 
strength,  a  lady  can  wave  her  fan  through  it  and  scarcely 
stir  the  down  of  its  trimming.  But  the  same  elements 
compose  it  in  solid  and  in  gas,  when  it  rends  its  way  up- 
ward and  when  it  floats  upon  the  bosom  of  the  air ! 

Water  at  one  temperature  is  ice — clear  crystal ;  at  an- 
other, steam — the  invisible  spirit  of  power ;  it  becomes 
vapor  ;  is  piled  into  clouds  ;  forms  the  islands  of  light  that 
glow  like  molten  rubies  and  sapphire  in  the  setting  sun ; 
it  weaves  itself  into  more  than  fairy-like  beauty  in  the 
gleaming  tracery  of  the  frost,  or  clothes  itself  in  the  sin- 
less purity  of  the  snow-flake ;  it  glistens  like  tears  of  joy 
in  dew-drops ;  it  comes  down  like  liquid  diamonds  in  the 
summer  rain,  sinks  into  the  earth  to  reappear  in  the  ver- 
dure of  the  grass  and  leaves,  in  the  beauty  of  flowers  and 
fruit ;  yet  in  all  these  beautiful  transitions — in  ice  and 
steam,  in  frost,  snow,  and  rain,  in  grass,  in  fruit,  and  in  the 


LECTURES.  357 

red  blood  that  warms  the  heart  and  blushes  in  the  cheek 
of  beauty,  it  is  the  same  substance. 

Take  a  bar  of  silver — a  "  Washoe  brick  "  ;  surely  that  is 
a  thing  tangible  to  sense.  You  can  learn  its  exact  specific 
gravity,  assay  it  and  determine  what  foreign  matters  are 
present,  if  any ;  you  can  ascertain  its  commercial  value. 
Certainly,  there  is  no  mystery  about  this,  except  to  get  it 
and  keep  it.  Take  a  part  of  it ;  polish  it  on  copper ;  ex- 
pose it  to  the  vapor  of  iodine,  and  it  becomes  sensitive  to 
the  light ;  will  receive  and  retain  images  cast  upon  it,  as 
wonderfully  as  do  the  mysterious  tablets  of  the  memory 
the  impressions  made  upon  them.  Take  the  remainder; 
dissolve  it  in  nitric  acid  ;  that  which  was  a  white,  gleaming 
solid,  is  a  liquid,  almost  colorless  ;  heat  it — it  becomes  air. 

Take  the  diamond — one  of  the  hardest  of  substances ; 
with  a  heat  sufficiently  powerful,  it  will  be  consumed — 
become  a  gas  less  than  half  as  heavy  as  the  air.  Will 
not  some  empirical  philosopher  to  whom  matter  is  fact, 
spirit  a  myth,  send  out  and  impress  into  his  services  this 
airy,  volatile  essence,  solidify  it,  crystallize,  and  make  a 
diadem  for  his  favorite  science,  whose  royal,  radiant, 
flaming,  flashing  splendor  shall  pale  the  Koh-i-noor  into  a 
glittering  bauble — a  nursery  plaything? 

If  the  diamond — a  substance  harder  than  flint — is 
but  the  imprisoned  spirit  of  the  air,  what  is  there  palpable 
to  feeling  and  to  sight  ?  Why,  if  the  earth  were  sud- 
denly stopped  in  its  revolution,  instantly  checked  in  its 
whirl  around  the  sun,  it  would  melt  in  its  own  fires, 
consume  with  fervent  heat,  vanish  into  thin  air,  "and, 
like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision,  leave  not  a  wreck 
behind." 

But  matter  does  not  change.  The  chemist  will  tell 
you  the  elements  are  indestructible — they  only  change 
in  form  and  appearance.  What  is  that  thing  that 
remains  unchanged  in  all  these  transitions  of  form  and 
appearance  ;  which  is  the  same   in  the  solid,  the  liquid, 


358  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

the  gas ;  in  organic  life  and  decay  ;  which  is  not  size, 
or  weight,  or  form,  or  color,  or  life,  or  death  ;  but  in 
which  all  these  things  inhere,  and  which  still  exists 
when  they  are  purged  away?  What  is  that  substance 
on  which  the  Creator  paints  the  beauty  and  glory  of 
the  universe;  through  which  He  reveals  His  laws,  and 
makes  manifest  His  power? 

That  is  a  sealed  book — an  inscrutable  mystery.  Some 
philosophers  have  denied  the  existence  of  this  base, 
and  contended  that  the  external  world  was  simply 
an  appearance — a  mere  show — like  the  image  seen 
in  a  mirror,  that  ceases  to  be  when  there  is  no  eye  to 
regard  it. 

Chemistry  instructs  us  there  are  about  sixty  elements, 
that  is,  sixty  forms  of  matter  incapable  of  further  analysis 
with  the  present  means  of  science.  These  elements  are 
described  by  their  properties ;  as  oxygen  supports 
combustion,  vitalizes  the  blood,  etc.  But  what  is  that 
thing  which  supports  combustion  and  gives  life  to  the 
blood  ?  There,  science  is  as  dumb  as  the  sense.  The 
chapter  of  mystery  is  reached.  How  is  it  that  hydrogen, 
the  lightest  of  the  gases,  combines  with  oxygen  in  one 
proportion  in  this  glass  of  water  ;  and  in  another  in  this 
flame  of  gas  ? 

The  elements,  only  twelve  of  which  are  found  in 
abundance,  in  various  combinations  form  the  material 
universe.  Sometimes  science  discovers  a  new  substance 
which  it  cannot  analyze,  thus  adding  to  the  list ;  some- 
times it  succeeds  in  resolving  one  to  two  simples  which 
were  before  known,  thus  reducing  the  number.  It  is 
possible,  if  we  had  an  alembic  sufficiently  powerful,  all 
forms  of  matter  might  be  reduced  into  one  substance 
which  we  see  only  in  different  conditions — one  pure 
ethereal  essence — the  absolute,  about  which  the  alchem- 
ists so  wildly  dreamed,  for  which  they  so  madly  sought ; 
in  that  pure,  absolute  form,  purged  of  the  properties  that 


LECTURES.  359 

change  and  decay,  in  the  etherealized  essence  of  matter, 
the  bodies  of  the  saints  may  appear,  "  when  this  corrupt- 
ible shall  have  put  on  incorruption." 

We  might  pursue  the  metaphysical  line  of  argument 
and  reach  the  same  conclusion,  that  we  can  know  noth- 
ing of  matter  as  it  absolutely  is.  We  are  conversant 
with  ideas,  not  with  objects.  We  know  what  a  rose  is 
only  from  the  impression  it  makes  upon  the  mind 
through  the  senses.  To  the  blind  man  it  has  no  color : 
to  one  without  the  sense  of  smell,  it  has  no  sweetness, 
to  one  devoid  of  sentiment,  it  has  no  beauty.  The  artist 
will  discover  in  it  a  symmetry  and  proportion  we  fail  to 
see ;  the  poet  and  the  lover  a  depth  of  meaning  we  can 
not  appreciate ;  the  microscope  will  reveal  qualities 
hidden  from  the  naked  eye.  We  can  imagine  a  being 
marvellously  endowed  with  senses  and  sensibilities  we 
do  not  possess,  for  whom  it  will  have  a  beauty  and  a 
sweetness,  a  life  and  a  meaning  mortals  can  never 
realize. 

Take  a  harp  and  play  upon  it  in  the  presence  of  one 
who  is  deaf,  and  though  your  touch  be  as  skilful  as 
David's  before  Saul,  it  will  be  to  him  "  inexplicable  dumb 
show."  There  may  be  an  intelligence  whose  soul  and 
sense  are  so  in  accord  with  the  harmonies  of  creation 
that  the  universal  space  is  filled  with  symphonies  such  as 
never  ravished  mortal  ear. 

All  that  we  know  even  of  the  qualities  of  objects  is 
from  the  images  they  cast  through  the  medium  of  the 
senses  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul,  and  as  the  senses 
are  but  darkened  windows,  and  the  soul  clouded 
by  mortality,  these  images  are  dim  and  obscure 
reflections  of  the  real  objects  God  has  created.  When 
the  film  of  the  flesh  is  removed,  and  we  see  no  longer  as 
through  a  glass  darkly,  the  glory  of  the  material  universe 
will  stream  upon  us,  radiant  with  the  living  presence  of 
Omnipotence. 


360  NEW  TO  1ST  BOOTH. 

If,  then,  we  know  of  the  existence  of  matter,  only  by  its 
appearances  and  phenomena,  we  know  of  the  existence 
of  spirit  in  the  same  manner,  by  its  powers  and  its  works. 
Matter  reveals  itself  in  forms  and  forces ;  the  life  of 
the  spirit,  its  divine  effluence,  is  thought.  We  cannot 
comprehend  what  matter  is,  and  we  cannot  lay  bare 
the  fiery  pulses  of  the  soul  and  watch  the  play  of  its 
life.  We  know  it  only  in  its  results ;  we  can  study  its 
laws  and  conditions — its  processes  are  hidden  even  from 
itself.  Its  operations  that  seem  most  familiar,  are  as 
mysterious  as  its  great  efforts  that  challenge  our  wonder 
and  command  our  reverence.  The  machinery  of  its 
hourly  action  is  the  same  that  moves  the  hand  of  fate 
through  the  circle  of  the  centuries.  The  birth  of  a  thought 
is  as  great  a  mystery  as  the  creation  of  a  race  or  the  fact 
of  human  life. 

You  try  to  think  of  a  name  which  you  cannot  recall ; 
you  knit  your  brows  and  endeavor  to  concentrate  your 
powers  and  shut  out  every  other  thought  ;  you  attempt  to 
recollect  how  it  looked  when  you  saw  it  written,  how  it 
sounded  when  you  heard  it  spoken — you  almost  hear  it 
and  see  it — but  it  glides  from  you.  But  you  have  started 
some  hidden  wheel  of  your  being  in  motion,  and  in 
a  moment  of  listlessness  the  word  unsought  drops  from 
your  lips. 

Your  seat  yourself  at  the  piano  to  play  a  piece  from 
memory — are  you  conscious  of  the  thought  and  the  will 
that  controls  every  touch  of  the  fingers  as  they  flash  over 
the  keys  ?  Why  the  very  fingers  seem  to  think,  and 
give  you  leave  to  think  and  talk  of  something  else, 
while  they  wander  through  the  mazes  of  music  and  untie 
the  harmony  of  sound. 

Whence  comes  that  easy  flow  and  sparkle  of  language 
in  animated  conversation,  when  your  thoughts  come  to 
you  clothed  in  words,  and  you  are  surprised  by  your  own 
fancies  and  startled  by  your  own  suggestions  ? 


LECTURES.  361 

Whence  is  the  sudden  power  of  intellect  in  moments  of 
great  passion  or  strong  feeling,  that  quick,  deep  insight 
which  reveals  a  hidden  world  like  a  flash  of  lightning  in 
the  dark  ? 

Whence  came  that  elevation,  that  lofty  serenity  to 
Buffon  when  the  ardor  of  composition  possessed  him, 
when  his  being  was  transfused  with  a  glow  of  light,  when 
he  could  almost  hear  the  circulation  of  his  blood,  when 
words  formed  themselves  beneath  his  pen,  and  to  write 
was  like  listening  to  music  ? 

In  what  deep  cavern  of  his  being,  in  what  dark  recess 
of  his  nature  was  the  soul  of  Socrates,  when  he  stood  in 
sublime  abstraction  day  and  night,  barefooted,  on  the  ice, 
listening  to  the  inner  voice  ? 

What  fingers  of  light  anointed  the  eyes  and  unsealed 
the  spiritual  sight  of  Swedenborg  to  the  presence  of  min- 
istering angels? 

What  ecstasy  of  vision  fell  upon  the  soul  of  Joan  of 
Arc  when  she  saw  forms  and  heard  voices  in  the  air  ? 

Witness  the  power  and  mystery  of  living  thought  in  its 
out-flashing  from  the  soul.  See  Demosthenes  before  the 
Athenian  multitude,  his  being  aglow  with  the  earnestness 
of  passionate  conviction,  every  word,  tone,  look,  motion 
electric,  kindling  the  blood  and  firing  the  soul  until  the 
mass  arise  as  one  man  and  shout  "  lead  us  to  Philip." 
See  Felix  trembling  and  Agrippa  convicted  before  the 
spiritual  power  of  Paul,  the  chained  prisoner.  Behold 
Webster,  when,  at  the  close  of  his  great  speech,  he  turns 
his  face  upward  and  sees  the  flag  of  this  country  floating 
from  the  dome  of  the  Capitol,  and  in  rapt  inspiration  he 
touches  its  folds  with  seraphic  fire,  sublimer  than  the 
light  of  battle,  an  imperishable  spiritual  glory  ! 

Witness  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  thought  in  its 
development  and  growth  within  the  soul.  Who  can 
tell  by  what  subtle  chemistry  the  flower  draws  from  the 
coarse  earth  its  beauty  and  sweetness  ?     Who  can  instruct 


362  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

us  how  the  acorn  becomes  an  oak — how  the  tree  sends  its 
roots  deep  into  the  ground  to  get  a  fast  hold  upon  life, 
how  it  gathers  strength  in  the  storm,  beauty  in  the  sun- 
shine, how  it  draws  from  earth  and  sun  and  air  the  mate- 
rials for  its  wooden  fibres,  for  its  tough  and  knotted  trunk, 
its  branching  limbs  and  coronal  of  leaves. 

Even  so  some  germ  may  unfold  its  latent  powers  with- 
in the  soul,  send  its  roots  downward  in  the  being  to  the 
sources  of  spiritual  life,  may  draw  strength  and  beauty 
from  joys  and  sorrows,  from  all  sweet  and  bitter  experien- 
ces, from  peace,  passion,  and  suffering ;  from  temptations, 
trials,  and  triumphs — from  incommunicable  dreams  and 
quickening  aspiration — from  the  agony  and  bloody  brain- 
sweat  of  intense  thought — from  the  still  bliss  of  reverie, 
the  ecstasy  of  vision,  the  rapture  of  contemplation,  the 
transports  of  love  ;  from  all  knowledge  and  insight ;  from 
faith,  the  communion  of  spirits,  the  sunshine  of  God's 
presence,  until  it  becomes  an  excellence,  a  beauty,  a  joy, 
and  a  living  glory  forever  and  forever. 

Thus,  a  blind  old  man  heard  the  story  of  the  siege  of 
Troy,  and  his  immortal  song  floating  above  the  storms  of 
time  has  come  down  to  us  over  the  graves  of  thirty 
centuries  ;  it  is  heard  in  the  lullings  of  the  battle,  it  blends 
with  the  hum  of  labor,  with  the  voices  of  the  day  and  the 
night,  and  charms  the  stillness  of  solitude  and  peace. 
Thus  Shakespeare  heard  a  tale  of  a  barbarous  king,  who, 
a  thousand  years  ago,  divided  his  realm  between  two 
pernicious  daughters,  a  third,  who  loved  him,  he  loaded 
with  his  curse,  and  she,  faithful  in  her  love,  followed  his 
evil  fortunes  to  the  grave ;  and  from  his  wonder-working 
soul  came  Lear,  with  its  passion  and  suffering,  its  night, 
tempest,  crime,  madness,  and  death,  blending  in  a  strain 
of  awful  grandeur  and  terror,  the  world's  masterpiece  of 
sublimity  and  pathos. 

Thus,  too,  he  read  the  legend  of  a  Danish  prince 
who  feigned  madness  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  King 


LECTURES.  363 

— and  gave  to  the  world  Hamlet,  demanding  of  the  grave 
its  mysteries,  of  eternity  its  secrets,  of  life  its  philosophy, 
of  death  its  meaning,  to  endow  his  marvellous  creation 
with  thoughts  that  lie  beyond  the  reaches  of  our  souls. 
Newton,  from  the  falling  of  an  apple,  evolved  the  law  of 
gravitation, 

"  That  golden  everlasting  chain, 
That  binds  in  its  strong  embrace  the  earth  and  heaven  and  main." 

Watt  saw  the  lid  of  a  tea-kettle  raised  by  an  invisible 
force,  and  chained  the  tireless  power  of  steam  to  the 
chariot  of  the  world's  progress.  Milton  read  "  there  was 
war  in  heaven,"  another  morn  rose  on  his  sightless  eyes, 
and  he  painted  and  hung  in  the  gallery  of  time  that  great 
picture  of  heaven  and  earth  and  hell,  at  which  all  pass- 
ing generations  turn  to  gaze  with  wonder  and  delight. 

What  bright  ideas  illumined  the  soul  of  Raphael  before 
he  gave  his  Madonna  and  Transfiguration  to  the  canvas. 
In  what  august  spiritual  temples  knelt  the  spirit  of  Angelo, 
what  lofty  domes  of  thought  lifted  their  skyey  presence 
above  him  before  Saint  Peter's  arose  in  its  marble  grandeur 
like  an  embodied  dream  of  the  gods. 

Beethoven,  when  deaf  to  outward  sounds,  could  still 
listen  to  spiritual  harmonies,  feel  fountains  of  melody 
gushing  within  his  being,  and  pour  his  thoughts,  "  too 
deep  for  tears,"  in  music,  the  ethereal  expression,  the 
primal  language  of  the  soul. 

How  poor  and  dull  often  seem  the  symbols  and  drapery 
of  thought.  There  are  five  lines,  there  are  bars,  there 
are  stems,  circles,  dots,  and  marks,  to  represent  notes  in 
music.  In  themselves  how  uncouth  and  meaningless, 
but  into  these  empty  forms  the  composer  breathes  a 
power,  a  divinity  that  soothes  the  turbulence  of  passion, 
melts  the  heart  with  tenderness,  fires  the  blood  with  en- 
thusiasm, lifts  the  soul  with  reverence  or  enraptures  it 
with  love.      The   power,  the  divinity,  may  sleep  in  its 


364  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

dark  entombment  for  ages,  but  at  the  master's  magic 
touch  it  wakes  in  all  the  mystery  of  its  meaning. 

There  are  twenty-six  letters — look  at  them  as  they 
appear  in  an  unknown  language,  the  Hebrew  or  Greek 
or  German  text,  what  idle  characters,  figures  without 
symmetry  or  expression,  a  blank,  blind  riddle  ;  but  these 
characters  have  received  the  baptism  of  the  spirit,  they 
are  interpreters  from  the  dead  to  the  living — they  en- 
shrine the  lessons  of  wisdom  and  experience,  the  dreams 
and  revelations  of  poetry,  the  commands  and  promises 
of  God. 

What  utterances  of  jargon  are  mere  words.  Listen  to 
them  in  a  strange  tongue.  What  prattle  and  babble  and 
gibberish,  not  musical  like  the  notes  of  birds  or  the  hum 
of  insects  ;  not  grand  like  the  roar  of  wild  beasts — con- 
ventional combinations  of  articulate  sounds — but  "  words, 
words,  words " — how  they  can  glow  with  feeling  and 
genius  ;  how  are  they  quickened  with  intellect  and  pas- 
sion ;  what  spiritual  bodies  do  they  become  for  immortal 
thought ;  what  winged  messengers  of  love.  Spoken,  they 
are  the  living  oracles  of  the  soul ;  written,  they  receive 
its  fleeting  life  into  their  deathless  forms  and  eternize  it, 
making  all  the  ages  one,  so  that  Plato  is  our  companion, 
Seneca  our  instructor,  Montaigne  our  friend,  making  the 
present  musical  with  the  psalms  of  David,  rich  with  the 
wisdom  of  Solomon,  holy  by  the  Saviour's  death.  Strike 
them  from  existence,  and  time  would  become  a  sea  of 
darkness  and  sky  of  blackness  without  one  star. 

These  two,  these  characters  and  symbols,  these  letters 
and  words,  are  the  creatures  of  the  spirit  and  attest  its 
power ;  created  by  it  that  through  them  thought  might 
not  die,  but  have  immortal  life.  Ay,  upon  all  that  is, 
which  redeems  life  from  the  perishable  quality  of  the 
beasts,  and  refines  it  to  the  temper  of  the  skies,  the  spirit 
has  set  its  seal,  and  claims  it  for  its  own.  All  conquests 
from  rudeness,  ignorance,  and  savage  life  belong  to  the 


LECTURES.  365 

spirit  ;  the  sciences  are  parts  of  the  domain  of  nature 
illumined  by  its  light.  The  arts  are  its  thoughts  em- 
bodied in  visible  forms,  great  actions,  lofty  characters; 
noble  lives  are  its  purest  manifestations  ;  all  progress,  the 
unfolding  of  its  powers  ;  history,  the  map  of  its  being. 
Whatever  has  been  said,  written,  or  done,  all  achieve- 
ments, inventions,  discoveries,  have  first  had  an  existence 
within  the  soul — are  types  of  the  inner  life.  The  soul, 
working  in  secret  and  darkness,  creates,  moulds  visible 
forms  to  its  unseen  will.  Thought,  its  silent,  inscrutable 
agent,  controls  and  guides  the  events  and  revolutions  of 
human  affairs.  Fate  is  but  the  limitation  of  its  powers  ; 
destiny,  their  final  result. 

"  The  inarticulate  thought  of  a  dreaming  youth  of  to- 
day, to-morrow  is  opinion  ;  then  revolution  ;  then  an 
institution."  Would  you  see  the  grandest  triumph  of 
spiritual  power?  Eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  a  patient 
sufferer  walked  the  earth — "  the  first  gentleman  that  ever 
breathed."  Born  in  a  manger,  he  was  crucified  between 
thieves.  To-day,  art  dedicates  its  noblest  temples  to  his 
worship,  its  divinest  paintings  to  his  memory,  its  grand- 
est anthems  to  his  praise.  No  soul  is  so  high  as  to  be 
above  his  power ;  none  so  low  as  beneath  his  influence. 
His  spirit  permeates  all  civilization,  and  opens  the  gates 
of  illimitable  progress. 

Men  die — thoughts  never.  The  spirit  of  Peter  the 
Great  still  animates  Russia.  For  two  thousand  years 
Aristotle  gave  direction  to  human  inquiry.  The  large- 
souled  Plato,  though  we  are  told  there  are  never  twenty 
men  living  at  once  who  can  read  and  understand  him,  is 
still  the  horizon  of  the  intellect.  Bacon  is  an  energizing 
presence  to  minds  that  never  heard  of  his  "  Organum." 
What  a  long  line  of  professional  ancestors  think  through 
the  physician  who  feels  your  pulse.  You  look  at  your 
watch,  but  he  who  first  mapped  the  constellations  on  the 
sky  ;  he  who  traced  the  path  of  the  sun,  and  divided  the 


366  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

zodiac ;  the  first  artificers  in  metals ;  the  inventor  of 
Arabic  numerals ;  the  inventors  of  the  hour-glass,  the 
horologe  and  the  dial,  all  lived  and  thought  to  enable 
you  to  tell  the  hour  and  the  day.  Their  minds  move  the 
wheels  of  your  chronometer,  and  guide  its  hands  as  they 
follow  the  diurnal  circuit  of  the  sun.  You  have  lands, 
houses,  and  goods ;  but  it  is  the  experience  of  all  the  past 
that  cultivates,  and  builds,  and  weaves.  Your  crops  are 
sown  and  harvested  ;  your  habitations  are  made  homes, 
and  your  garments  are  fashioned  by  arts  that  were  once 
thoughts  ;  but  for  them,  you  would  have  no  implements 
to  subdue  the  wilderness  ;  your  houses  would  be  huts  ; 
your  raiment,  the  skins  of  animals  ;  your  meat,  "  locusts 
and  wild  honey."  You  speak  to  your  neighbor,  but  the 
language  through  which  your  meaning  is  expressed  is  the 
fossilized  thoughts  of  races  that  have  perished. 

Not  alone  through  men  as  individuals,  is  spiritual 
power  made  manifest.  It  gives  to  nations,  races,  and 
to  the  whole  race  of  mankind,  a  unity  of  life  and  pur- 
pose. Nations  are  great  actors  on  the  stage  ;  with 
spiritual  individuality,  Rome  and  Greece  were  as  real  as 
Caesar  and  Pericles.  England  is  truer  than  Palmerston ; 
France  nobler  than  Louis  Napoleon.  What  a  controlling 
and  guiding  power  is  national  existence.  To-day,  to 
meet  the  necessities  of  its  growth,  it  directs  the  energies 
of  its  people  to  the  invention  of  the  steam-boat  and  tele- 
graph, the  reaper  and  cultivator  ;  to-morrow,  amid  the 
the  exigencies  of  danger,  to  casting  columbiads,  build- 
ing monitors  and  ironsides.  To-day,  it  colonizes  gold 
fields  ;  to-morrow,  it  organizes  armies.  To-day,  it  finds 
voice  in  song,  essay,  and  oration ;  to-morrow,  in  procla- 
mations of  freedom,  the  thunder  of  battle.  Woe,  woe, 
to  the  man  who  would  lay  irreverent  hands  upon  the 
unity  of  a  nation's  spirit  when  it  has  been  anointed 
from  on  High  and  consecrated  to  the  utterance  of 
freedom. 


LECTURES.  367 

Men  write  books,  make  inventions  and  discoveries, 
embody  their  thoughts  in  their  lives.  Nations  build 
governments,  establish  laws,  direct  the  current  of  life 
in  the  great  channels  of  history.  Races  create  languages 
— the  grandest  achievement  of  intellect — perfect  arts, 
for  in  the  unity  of  a  race's  history,  the  lives  of  its  great 
men  appear  as  different  parts  of  one  train  of  thought ; 
hew  the  temples  of  civilization  from  the  rough  granite 
of  barbarism. 

Standing  on  the  vantage-ground  of  the  present,  look 
at  the  great  picture  of  human  life  as  it  reaches  backward 
through  the  past — through  the  deep  vista  of  the  ages 
that  are  gone,  until  it  is  lost  in  the  darkness  of  oblivion. 
See  the  grand  procession  of  events — arts,  arms,  laws, 
literatures,  languages,  cities,  empires,  heroism,  imperial 
forms  like  the  limning  of  destiny, — all  this  is  but  the 
outward  representation  of  the  spirit  of  man,  the  inner  life 
projected  on  the  canvas  of  time. 

"  The  power  whereby  the  present  era  gathers  into  itself 
the  results  of  the  past,  transforms  the  whole  human  race  into 
a  colossal  man,  whose  life  reaches  from  the  creation  to  the 
day  of  judgment."  Through  the  still  hours  of  the  morning 
of  time,  when  Jehovah  walked  with  the  children  of  earth, 
through  the  glimmerings  of  prophecy,  the  revolutions  of 
science,  the  inspiration  of  song;  through  dark  wrestlings 
with  wrong,  the  agony  of  revolutions,  the  bloody  sweat 
of  battles ;  through  the  dawning  of  freedom,  the  bless- 
edness of  peace,  amid  the  teachings  of  nature,  and 
beneath  the  flaming  cross  of  Christ  rising  into  mid- 
heaven,  and  blazing  with  unspeakable  spiritual  power, 
this  "  colossal  man  "  is  growing  up  to  his  full  maturity. 

Are  you  impatient  that  the  growth  is  slow  ?  That  is 
but  the  evidence  of  the  grandeur  of  his  destiny.  Flowers 
are  the  children  of  a  season,  but  nature  gives  thousands 
of  years  to  the  trees  of  Calaveras,  the  great  periods  of 
geology  to  fit  the  earth  as  a  dwelling-place  for  man.     On 


368  NEW  TOM  BOOTH. 

a  clear  summer  night  you  can  see  in  the  heavens  a  thin, 
mist-like  substance,  that  looks  like  a  breath  upon  a 
mirror.  There,  in  the  depths  of  space,  a  great  ocean  of 
matter,  in  its  primitive  form,  circles  like  a  maelstrom. 
Millions  of  ages  go  by  and  it  solidifies  into  revolving 
rings.  Another  great  astronomical  epoch  elapses,  and 
these  rings  are  rolled  up  into  worlds,  and  a  new  system 
wheels  into  place  to  measure  some  new  cycle  in  the 
boundless  aeons  of  eternity. 

Room  in  your  midst,  ye  highest  spiritual  intelligences 
of  the  universe,  make  room  for  man,  "  time's  giant  pupil, 
when  he  shall  attain  his  majority,"  grow  up  to  his  full 
stature,  and  encircle  his  forehead  with  a  diadem  of 
stars  ! 

But  there  is  a  higher  revelation  of  spirit,  "  as  the 
heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth  "  ;  man's  spirit  em- 
bodies itself  in  the  works  of  time  ;  God  clothes  his  thoughts 
in  the  wonders  of  creation. 

We  divide  and  classify  the  sciences.  We  speak  of 
astronomy  and  chemistry,  geology,  botany,  and  physi- 
ology, but  as  we  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  each  they 
grow  towards  each  other,  and  will  ultimately  meet  in  an 
harmonious  whole.  The  mathematician  turns  his  back 
upon  matter  and  investigates  abstract  truths.  He  endeav- 
ors to  read  without  intervention  the  thoughts  of  Omnipo- 
tence, and  he  finds  that  the  principles  of  this,  the  most 
spiritual  of  sciences,  underlie  all  the  others,  and  unite 
them  together.  Shelley  beautifully  said,  "  that  all  poems 
are  but  episodes  to  that  great  poem  which  all  poets,  like 
the  co-operating  thoughts  of  one  great  mind,  have  built 
up  since  the  beginning  of  the  world."  So  are  all  arts 
reflections  of  the  beautiful  in  the  soul — all  sciences  parts 
of  one  plan — all  truths  parts  of  one  revelation  from  on 
high. 

Take  the  wings  of  the  light  and  pierce  the  immensity 
of  space.     Space  is  illimitable,  for  what  is  on  the  other 


LECTURES.  369 

side,  and  wherever  space  is,  there  are  galaxies  of  worlds. 
What  is  all  this  but  the  expression  of  the  thought,  the 
manifestation  of  the  spiritual  life  of  Him  who  paints 
the  violet,  and  breathes  the  perfume  in  the  rose.  All, 
all  are  but  shows  ;  spirit  alone  is  real,  unchangeable, 
eternal ! 

LECTURE  ON  THE  PRESENT  HOUR. 

DELIVERED   IN   THE   M.  E.    CHURCH,    SACRAMENTO,    MARCH    29,   1865. 

When  the  Palace  of  the  Louvre  was  completed  in  Paris, 
in  1857,  the  Emperor  Louis  Napoleon,  in  his  speech  at 
the  dedication  of  the  building,  said  in  effect  that  it  had 
been  commenced  as  the  royal  dwelling  of  the  sovereignty 
of  France  by  Francis  I.,  embellished  by  Henry  II.,  con- 
tinued by  Louis  XL,  Louis  XIII. ,  Richelieu,  Louis  XIV., 
XV.,  and  XVL,  by  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  during 
the  terrors  of  the  Revolution,  by  the  genius  of  the  First 
Napoleon  amid  the  triumphs  and  splendors,  the  mis- 
fortunes and  defeats  of  his  consulate  and  imperial  reign, 
by  the  restored  monarchy  of  the  Bourbons  and  the 
Orleanists,  even  recognized  as  a  national  work  by  the 
ephemeral  Republican  Government  of  1848,  so  that  in  its 
completed  state  under  his  own  reign,  it  was  a  monument 
to  the  glory  of  France,  built  by  her  oft-changing  govern- 
ments, reflecting  the  spirit  of  her  people,  to  which  each 
succeeding  dynasty  and  passing  generation  had  con- 
tributed, and  in  which  fleeting  events  had  left  a  substan- 
tial record.  It  was,  so  to  speak,  the  history  of  France, 
written  in  stone  and  emblazoned  by  art. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  borrow  from  this  an 
illustration  of  the  leading  idea  I  desire  to  present  in  this 
lecture — which  is — that  everything  which  now  exists,  is 
so  much  the  production,  the  work,  or  growth  of  the  past, 
that,  in  arts  and  in  arms,  in  character,  institutions,  knowl- 
edge, and  events,  all  the  ages  that  are  gone  live  again  in 
the  present  hour. 


370  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Perhaps  I  might  draw  a  more  striking  illustration  from 
the  history  of  the  Cathedral  at  Milan.  Of  this,  we  are 
told  "  the  present  building  is  the  third,  perhaps  the  fourth, 
re-edification  of  the  original  structure,  which  St.  Ambrose 
in  a  letter  to  his  sister  Marcellina  calls  the  great,  new 
Basilica.  The  primitive  Cathedral  was  destroyed  by 
Attila.  When  rebuilt  it  was  burned  by  accident  in  1075. 
It  was  again  destroyed  by  Frederick  I.,  in  1162.  These 
demolitions  were  probably  only  partial.  The  first  stone 
of  the  present  Duomo  was  laid  by  Gian  Galeazzo  Visconti, 
in  1387 — who  sought  and  found  an  architect  among  the 
Free  Masons  of  Germany. "  This  building  thus  recom- 
menced a  hundred  years  before  the  "  Great  Admiral  "  had 
revealed  to  the  Old  World  the  enchanting  vision  of  the 
New,  before  the  printing-press  had  sent  forth  the  Bible, 
its  first  printed  book,  has  been  continued  with  scarcely  an 
interruption  ever  since,  and  is  still  incomplete.  For  al- 
most five  hundred  years  the  sound  of  the  hammer  has 
been  there  continuously  heard,  and  the  workman  of  to- 
day is  busy  upon  nave  or  cornice,  column  or  capital,  frieze 
or  buttress,  chancel  or  altar,  niche  or  spire,  that  was  com- 
menced by  a  fellow-craftsman  whose  form  had  mouldered 
into  dust  before  Columbus  was  born  ;  and  his  hands  are 
working  close  beside  the  skeleton  hands  of  co-workers  of 
twenty  successive  generations,  each  of  which  has  there 
left  the  silent  record  of  the  labor  of  a  life.  Through  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  history  the  work  has  still  gone  on,  and 
still  kept  same  register  of  the  changing  hours.  That 
noble  temple  of  religion  and  art  seems  like  the  embodied 
presence  of  the  past.  Here,  before  the  Basilica,  the  cru- 
saders paused  in  admiration  as  they  swept  into  the  East 
to  rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  These  walls  and  columns 
were  rising  when  an  Emperor  held  the  stirrup  of  the 
Pope — when  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican  dethroned 
Kings — when  Luther  rang  his  blast  of  defiance  and  nailed 
his  challenge  to  the  door  of  the  church,  and  still  the 


LECTURES.  371 

work  goes  on,  under  the  impulse  of  the  far-off  past, 
when  the  encyclical  letter  of  the  Pope  is  unheeded, 
his  voice  drowned  by  the  whirl  of  machinery,  the 
clangor  of  arms,  the  outburst  of  revolution,  and  when 
the  thunders  that  shake  the  thrones  of  kings  come  not 
from  Rome,  but  from  the  awakened  majesty  of  popular 
power. 

But  a  voice  from  the  past,  even  more  distant  than  that 
of  St.  Ambrose  or  Attila,  speaks  to  us  from  the  Duomo. 
It  is  built  in  the  form  of  the  cross — a  form  that  received 
its  sanctity  in  architecture,  as  in  religion,  from  the  death 
of  the  Saviour.  It  was  ancient  Rome  that  taught  the 
builder  how  to  curve  these  arches ;  Greece,  how  to  rear 
these  columns  and  carve  these  capitals  ;  Egypt,  how  to 
lay  the  foundations  and  build  the  walls.  Before  a  stone 
was  laid,  the  ideal  temple  existed  in  the  mind  of  the 
architect,  and  the  hut  by  the  Ganges,  the  pyramids  by 
the  Nile,  the  temple  of  Solomon,  the  Parthenon  of  Athens, 
the  Coliseum  of  Rome,  were  all  studies  that  enabled  him 
to  form  this  ideal.  Thus  the  whole  history  of  civilization, 
the  progress  of  humanity  from  babarism  to  refinement, 
are  reflected  in  the  plan  of  the  temple.  Nay,  more ;  as 
religious  ideas  are  essentially  associated  with  forms  of 
art,  all  the  spiritual  experiences  of  the  race,  its  worship 
of  "  the  fair  humanities  of  old  religion,"  its  intense  striv- 
ings for  the  light  of  truth  through  the  teachings  of  nature, 
and  the  unfolding  of  the  solemn  plan  of  redemption,  were 
all  necessary  before  this  triumph  of  architecture  could  be 
achieved.  Thus  religion,  art,  civilization,  in  all  their  his- 
tory, meet  and  blend  in  visible  form,  to  perpetuate  the 
past  through  all  the  future  ;  and  thus  somewhere,  in  some 
form  of  art,  in  some  custom  of  society,  in  some  living 
thought,  or  existing  institutions,  all  the  hours  of  the  dead 
past  still  live.  Not  one  of  them  has  perished.  To-day  is 
but  the  reflex  and  epitome  of  all  the  days  that  are  gone. 
No  prophet  has  spoken,  no  martyr  died,  no  statesman 


372  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

built,  no  philosopher  searched,  no  workman  toiled,  whose 
influence  is  not  felt  to-day. 

We  need  not  go  to  monumental  piles,  and  structures 
of  a  thousand  years,  for  illustrations  ;  we  ourselves,  in  our 
own  beings  and  characters,  are  examples  of  the  same 
truth.  What  we  are  now  is  the  result  of  our  past 
lives  and  the  whole  of  our  ancestry.  Our  bodies  are 
strong,  robust,  with  free,  bounding,  joyous  pulses,  and 
senses  that  are  outlooks  upon  the  universe,  or  they  are 
feeble,  frail  tenements,  the  habitations  of  insidious  disease 
and  lurking  sickness,  as  we  and  our  fathers  have  con- 
formed to  or  violated  the  laws  of  life  and  rules  of  health. 

Then,  too,  our  moral  natures  are  no  less  a  reflection  of 
the  past.  The  temptations  we  have  met  and  overcome, 
the  hardships  we  have  endured,  the  struggles  we  have 
passed  through,  all  pour  their  strength  into  the  life-tide 
of  to-day.  The  temptations  to  which  we  have  yielded, 
the  sins  of  the  past  ;  who  has  not  realized  the  traces  they 
have  left  upon  the  soul  ?  The  sorrows  we  have  suffered, 
the  friend,  the  child,  or  the  mother  whom  we  buried 
years  ago,  have  given  depth  and  compass  to  our  beings, 
and  marked  the  character  with  grief  lines  eternity  may 
not  erase. 

The  ambition,  the  dream,  the  aspiration  of  boyhood 
all  live  in  the  fires  of  manhood,  and  slumber  in  the 
embers  of  old  age.  Even  the  awakening  thoughts,  the 
dim  perceptions,  the  first  sensations  of  infancy  become 
parts  of  the  character  we  carry  with  us  to  our  graves — 
else  why,  when  all  these  are  forgotten,  do  we  retain  the 
sense  of  identity  that  links  the  strong  man  battling  in 
the  ranks  of  the  world,  with  the  helpless  infant  sleeping 
in  his  cradle  forty  years  ago  ? 

But  the  influences  that  have  moulded  us  to  what  we 
are  reach  far  back  of  our  own  lives.  Our  temperament, 
strength  of  character,  force  of  will,  we  may  have  received 
from  our  fathers ;  out  mental  capacities  and  moral  sus- 


LECTURES.  373 

ceptibilities  may  be  the  birth-gift  of  our  mothers  ;  and 
that  which  they  bequeathed  to  us,  they  received  from 
their  fathers  and  mothers  before  them.  Take  as  an 
illustration,  that  terrible  calamity,  hereditary  insanity. 
It  may  sleep  through  generations,  but  its  taint  is  upon 
all  the  blood,  and  it  reappears  to  mark  the  heir  of  an 
ancestor  dead  a  hundred  years  ago. 

If  we  could  enter  a  picture  gallery  of  our  ancestors 
reaching  backward  through  all  the  past,  we  would  find 
no  figure  in  the  endless  line,  a  part  of  whose  nature  does 
not  still  survive  in  us.  Faces  we  would  find  there,  whose 
stern  and  lofty  justice  would  shame  the  degeneracy 
of  their  children — faces  whose  dark  crimes  and  coward 
weakness  would  make  us  blush  that  we  are  their  descend- 
ants— faces  grim  with  resolution,  and  soft  with  the 
tenderness  of  sentiment,  radiant  with  hope,  dark  with 
despair.  Perhaps  we  could  trace  back  through  pioneer 
and  puritan,  and  Saxon  and  Scandinavian  pirate  and 
Tartar  robber,  back  to  the  plains  of  the  East  and  the 
dreamers  of  the  Orient,  and  each  and  all  of  these  have 
furnished  the  elements  that  are  mingled  in  our  own  blood 
and  judgment  to-night. 

Thus  we  are,  each  of  us,  the  representatives  of  the 
past.  The  past,  dim,  mysterious,  and  impassable,  gone 
like  a  forgotten  dream,  gone  like  a  strain  of  music  that 
moved  the  air  and  died,  so  perished  we  can  scarce  realize 
it  has  ever  been,  still  lives,  moves,  breathes,  thinks,  acts, 
throbs  in  us. 

All  this  is  still  more  grandly  true  in  the  history  of 
empire.  A  nation's  laws,  manners,  customs,  institutions, 
character,  and  the  forms  of  her  religion  are  the  necessary 
result  of  her  history  in  the  past. 

That  grand  old  dreamer,  Plato,  could  construct  a 
model  republic,  but  it  lives  only  in  his  dream.  In  the 
imagination  of  Sir  Thomas  More  there  was  framed  a 
beautiful  Utopia,  perfect  in  design,  but  it  still  continues 


374  NEWTON'  BOOTH. 

the  Utopia  of  the  air.  Locke  framed  a  constitution  for 
Carolina,  but  that  embodiment  of  philosophic  wisdom 
yielded  and  gave  way  to  the  enactments  of  the  Provincial 
Assembly.  The  countries  of  South  America  and  Mexico 
endeavored  to  plant  the  institutions  of  the  United  States 
upon  their  own  lands,  but  the  seedlings  died — they  were 
not  the  outgrowths  of  the  soil. 

In  the  madness  of  revolution,  nations  may  sometimes 
pass  beyond  the  controlling  influence  of  their  own  tradi- 
tions, but  the  revolution  goes  by,  and  the  conservative 
power  of  the  unconquerable  past  resumes  its  sway. 
England  dethroned  and  beheaded  her  King,  but  the 
spirit  of  royalty  remained,  and  when  the  strong  arm  of 
Cromwell  was  removed,  a  new  head  sprang  from  the  old 
hierarchy,  and  the  throne  was  built  on  the  old  founda- 
tions. France  passed  from  monarchy  and  military  dicta- 
torship, through  the  fire  of  revolution  and  the  blood  of 
the  reign  of  terror,  back  to  monarchy  and  military 
dictatorship. 

But  see  how  the  past  will  perpetuate  itself  despite  of 
power  and  circumstances.  The  Saxon  descends  upon 
the  shores  of  England  and  utterly  subdues  and  enslaves 
the  Briton.  He  almost  blots  the  race  from  history,  but 
from  that  despised  and  enslaved  race  the  Saxon  himself 
receives  the  first  teachings  of  that  religion  which  is  here- 
after to  control  his  destiny.  In  his  turn  the  Saxon  yields 
to  the  Norman  Conqueror.  His  shrines  are  all  over- 
thrown— his  political  and  civil  rights  are  ignored — he 
sinks  below  the  protection  of  the  government.  At  the 
sounding  of  the  mournful  curfew-bell  the  light  of  his 
cottage  is  darkened.  He  may  not  meet  ten  of  his  neigh- 
bors, save  a  minion  of  the  law  is  with  them — yet  Saxon 
laws  and  Saxon  institutions  triumph  over  Norman  force 
and  Norman  power,  and  the  Saxon  furnishes  the  base 
of  that  language  which  is  hereafter  to  contain  the  great 
ideas  of  our  race. 


LECTURES.  375 

Norman,  Saxon,  and  Briton  are  all  blended  in  the  Eng- 
lishman, and  the  thousand  years  of  her  insular  history- 
are  all  reflected  in  the  England  of  to-day. 

The  Puritan  landed  upon  the  bleak  shores  of  New- 
England.  His  character  had  been  sharpened  by  contro- 
versy, hardened  by  persecution,  elevated  by  religious 
enthusiasm.  He  brought  with  him  his  own  traditions 
and  hopes.  A  barbarous  race  stood  in  the  pathway  of 
his  empire.  In  the  conflict  which  ensued  the  savage  was 
exterminated,  but  the  Indian  has  imparted  to  the  character 
of  his  conqueror  his  own  stoicism  and  cruelty,  restlessness 
of  restraint,  and  wild  love  of  freedom.  The  perished  race 
lives  again  in  the  dominant,  mingling  the  qualities  of  its 
own  wild  nature  with  the  stern  character  of  its  relentless 
foe. 

The  adventurer  and  cavalier  brought  to  the  richer  lands 
of  the  South  their  dreams  of  wealth  and  power.  Their 
pride,  impatience  of  authority,  and  desire  of  place  were 
all  fostered  and  developed  by  the  enslaved  race  that 
acknowledged  their  command. 

A  love  of  freedom,  of  personal  independence  was  a 
part  of  the  heritage  of  the  American  people.  That  love 
was  explained  by  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery  amid  which 
they  dwelt.  The  greatness  of  the  continent  given  them 
to  inhabit,  where  nature  works  only  upon  the  loftiest 
scale,  imbued  their  souls  with  aspirations  for  a  glorious 
destiny  for  the  race.  The  hardships  and  difficulties  of 
their  daily  life  imparted  to  them  strength  and  persistency 
of  purpose,  a  dauntless  spirit  and  unyielding  will ;  and  in 
vain  upon  them  did  the  strongest  nation  of  the  earth  en- 
deavor to  impose  the  restraints  of  arbitrary  power.  The 
character  formed  by  circumstances  could  not  be  crushed 
by  force.  In  the  war  of  the  Revolution  the  ideas  of 
liberty,  independence,  and  union  were  developed  and  em- 
bodied in  the  institutions  and  government  of  the  country, 
and  that  government,  an  organic  whole,  incarnates  the 


376  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

spirit  of  the  past,  the  history  of  the  people.  Lexington 
and  Monmouth,  Saratoga  and  Yorktown  still  live — live 
in  the  spirit  of  the  American  people.  There  may  they  live 
forever. 

It  has  been  our  fate  during  the  past  four  years  to  wit- 
ness the  awful  meeting  of  two  adverse  currents  of  destiny, 
whose  sources  are  far  back  in  the  history  of  man. 

Does  any  one  now  dream  that  the  civil  war  that  con- 
vulses our  land  is  the  accident  of  an  hour ;  that  it  could 
have  been  postponed  by  expedients,  averted  by  com- 
promises;  that  it  is  anything  else  than  the  conflict  of 
moral  forces,  old  as  time,  the  enforced  meeting  of  antago- 
nistic principles,  the  inevitable  result,  the  inexorable  logic 
of  events?  From  their  thrones  in  the  distant  and  shad- 
owy past,  these  two  principles,  Justice  proclaiming  free- 
dom, and  Power  ordaining  slavery,  have  again  sum- 
moned their  champions  to  refight  the  oldest  battle  of 
humanity,  and  to  crimson  the  green  fields  of  the  New 
World  with  the   most  precious  blood  of  a  generation. 

"  Oh,  keeper  of  the  sacred  key 
And  great  seal  of  destiny, 
Whose  eye  is  the  blue  canopy, 
Look  down  upon  the  warring  world  and  tell  us  what  the  end  will  be." 

Let  the  wrong  triumph  now,  and  "  earth's  base  is  built 
on  stubbles,  and  the  pillared  heaven  is  rottenness." 

Thus  every  nation,  from  old  China,  still  lingering  in  the 
dusky  morning  dawn  of  civilization,  to  young  America, 
sweating  great  drops  of  blood  as  she  wrestles  with  the 
evil  spirit  in  her  history,  each  is  the  product  and  represen- 
tative of  her  own  past. 

Let  us  see  for  one  moment  how  all  the  past  survives  in 
one  of  the  arts  of  the  present.  We  open  a  book,  and  its 
printed  pages  mirror  all  the  ages  that  are  gone.  Even 
the  leather  of  its  binding  carries  us  back  to  the  primi- 
tive state  of  man — to  the  time  when  the  skins  of  wild 


LECTURES,  377 

beasts  furnished  the  hunter  with  clothing — for  the  art  of 
dressing  and  tanning  leather  dates  its  first  suggestion  and 
rise  at  that  remote  period.  The  paper  on  which  it  is 
printed  is  the  papyrus  of  the  Egyptians  three  thousand 
years  old. 

The  art  of  printing,  as  evidenced  in  its  pages,  is  the 
slow  growth  of  four  hundred  years — and  the  letters, 
the  characters  that  embody  its  thoughts,  are  the  results 
of  that  picture-writing  whose  origin  was  a  forgotten  an- 
tiquity when  burned  Nineveh  and  desolated  Tadmor 
were  living  realities. 

Then,  too,  it  is  written  in  the  English  language — a 
language  whose  Saxon  and  Celtic  elements  are  as  old  as 
the  Chaldee  and  the  Syriac — and  can  be  traced  back  to 
the  nomadic  tribes  of  Asia  and  the  plains  of  Shinar. 
A  language  the  elegance  of  whose  diction,  and  accuracy 
of  whose  scientific  expression,  are  the  bequest  of  Roman 
and  Grecian  history,  and  whose  fulness,  richness,  and 
poetic  imagery  are  the  results  of  the  intermingling  of 
Briton,  Saxon,  Norman,  and  Dane,  the  commerce  of  ideas 
with  all  the  world,  and  the  growth  of  the  most  glorious 
literature  of  all  time. 

Thus  all  times  past,  all  ages  gone  have  worked  together 
to  produce  the  book  that  beguiles  the  hours  of  your 
leisure,  or  opens  for  you  a  new  vision  of  thought. 

And  what  are  times  past,  and  how  is  it  that  having 
utterly  ceased  to  be,  they  are  so  intimately  identified 
with  everything  which  is  ? 

We  are  so  much  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  the  suc- 
cessive generations  of  men,  we  almost  unconsciously 
adopt  the  idea  that  there  is  a  marked  transition  from  one 
age  to  another ;  that  one  generation  passes  from  the  stage 
of  action  and  another  comes  on  ;  that  the  curtain  of  his- 
tory falls  upon  one  set  of  actors,  the  scene  is  changed, 
and  it  is  uprolled  upon  another.  Nothing  can  be  more 
fallacious.      The  new  grows   old  so   imperceptibly,  the 


378  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

events  of  time  are  so  linked  together  and  interwoven,  it 
is  impossible  to  say  where  one  ends  and  the  other  begins. 
The  man  of  to-day  was  a  boy  thirty  years  ago,  but  he 
never  knew,  and  can  point  to  no  time  when  he  became  a 
man — when  he  first  felt  the  passions  and  thoughts  of 
manhood  in  his  blood  and  brain.  His  youth  unfolded 
into  maturity — his  being  was  a  growth. 

All  the  actors  of  our  Revolutionary  era  have  gone — 
but  when  did  they  pass  away  ?  There  has  been  no  day 
when  the  nation  could  go  into  mourning  and  say,  yester- 
day they  were,  and  to-day  they  are  not.  There  is  no 
marked  page  in  history  to  separate  their  era  from  ours. 
Socrates  died  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago.  He 
belongs  to  the  far  distant  past.  Since  then  nations  have 
arisen  and  fallen,  races  have  perished,  a  new  world  has 
been  discovered,  a  new  and  divine  religion  revealed  ;  yet 
all  the  events  that  have  transpired  since  have  been  so 
linked  together,  so  dependent  upon  each  other,  they 
constitute  like  the  flowing  current  of  a  river,  an  un- 
broken whole.  What  we  call  the  generations  of  men  in- 
termingle. We  divide  them  in  our  speech  as  we  divide 
the  life  of  a  man  into  youth,  manhood,  and  age,  but  they 
flow  into  each  other,  so  that  a  separation  in  fact  is  impos- 
sible. From  the  dawning  of  time  to  this  very  moment, 
hour  has  succeeded  hour,  event  followed  event  in  neces- 
sary connection,  and  it  is  all  one  piece,  one  web  and  woof, 
one  undivided,  indivisible  whole. 

The  present,  the  very  present,  is  a  mere  point  in  time. 
We  divide  the  day  into  hours,  the  hour  into  minutes,  the 
minute  into  seconds,  we  might  subdivide  the  second  into 
a  thousand  parts,  and  still  the  minutest  fraction  would  be 
too  large  to  represent  what  we  know  as  now.  It  is  gone 
ere  we  can  speak  the  word.  It  is  fleet  as  one  thought. 
"  It  is  like  the  lightning  which  doth  cease  to  be  ere  one 
can  say  it  lightens."  It  is,  and  it  flashes  by  us,  and  per- 
ishes forever,  before  we  can  syllable  its  name.      Yet  it  is 


LECTURES.  379 

this  infinitesimal  point,  this  pulse-beat  of  time  that  marks 
the  progress  of  the  centuries.  This  is  the  flashing  shuttle 
of  fate,  that  weaves  the  great  figures  of  history  in  the 
tapestry  of  destiny.  No  thread  is  broken,  no  figure  left 
imperfect — the  whole  is  a  unit — the  design  of  Providence, 
the  thought  of  God  made  manifest  in  the  doings  of  man. 

The  hours  as  they  pass  seem  trivial  and  unimportant. 
How  small  "will  this  dim  spot  that  men  call  earth  "  ap- 
pear when  the  telegraph  shall  place  us  in  instant  com- 
munication with  every  part  of  it — when  but  a  moment 
will  separate  us  from  England  and  Russia,  from  India 
and  China.  Even  now  it  seems  shrunk  to  a  nutshell  from 
its  magnificent  proportions  when  New  York  was  a  month 
from  London  and  a  year  from  Canton — how  shrunken 
from  its  sublime  incomprehensibility  when  the  sailor  of 
Egypt  or  Carthage  would  look  out  on  the  mysterious 
waters  of  the  ocean  and  wonder  if  they  did  not  wash  the 
shores  of  other  worlds  that  bordered  upon  the  stars,  or 
break  upon  the  boundaries  of  the  Infinite.  To-day  the 
overland  telegraph  brings  us  news  from  every  quarter  of 
the  globe,  and  it  fills  a  column  or  two  of  the  daily  news- 
paper, and  is  served  up  with  our  coffee  at  breakfast.  Five 
years  ago,  how  trifling  seemed  the  events  that  made  up 
the  world's  daily  budget  of  news.  The  rise  and  fall  of 
stocks  under  the  pressure  of  the  bulls  and  bears — the 
price  of  cotton,  tobacco,  and  flour — the  result  of  an  elec- 
tion where  place  and  power  only  were  at  stake — a  treaty 
of  trade — Flora  Temple's  best  time — the  description  of 
a  fight  between  Tom  Sayers  and  the  Benicia  Boy,  and  the 
wonderful  feat  of  Blondin  in  crossing  Niagara  on  a  rope ! 

Yet  beneath  this  brief  record  a  million  million  hearts 
were  throbbing,  a  million  million  hands  were  toiling,  a 
million  million  brains  seething  with  thought,  threads  of 
all  lives  were  running  out,  the  nations  marching  forward 
in  the  pathway  of  destiny,  and  the  races  fulfilling  the 
mission  ordained  them  from  eternity. 


380  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

And  now  passing  history,  as  if  grown  tired  of  trifles, 
writes  daily  the  rise  and  fall  of  a  nation's  hopes  with  the 
varying  price  of  gold,  chronicles  blood-bought  victories, 
blood-stained  defeats — illumines  her  pages  with  heroic 
names — hallows  them  with  the  memories  of  freedom's 
martyrs,  and  every  moment  we  await  the  flashing  intelli- 
gence that  shall  seal  the  brightest  consummation  of  time. 

But  amid  the  fierce  activities,  the  burning  hopes,  the 
drowning  clamors  of  the  hour,  through  all  the  vaulted 
arches  of  the  ages  gone,  comes  the  weird  voice  of  the  past, 
controlling  the  battle-storms  of  the  present  and  prophe- 
sying the  shapes  of  the  coming  future,  while  from  above 
the  stars  look  down  calmly  on  fields  of  blood  as  on  the 
valleys  of  peace,  and  over  all  reigns  the  unseen  God,  be- 
neath whose  awful  eye  the  tides  of  human  destiny  ebb 
and  flow,  and  unto  whom  a  thousand  years  are  but  as 
yesterday  or  a  night  that  is  gone. 

Another  fallacy  that  has  arisen  from  the  inaccuracy  of 
language  in  reference  to  time,  is  that  exposed  by  Lord 
Bacon,  alluding  to  ancient  times  as  the  "  old  world"  as  if 
humanity  were  younger  now  than  it  was  three  thousand 
years  ago — as  if  history  and  human  experience  were  not 
growing  older  day  by  day — as  if  this  hour  we  did  not 
stand  at  a  point  further  down  in  the  designs  of  Providence 
and  nearer  the  consummation  of  all  design  than  ever  be- 
fore. No.  The  world  in  relation  to  the  past  is  now  old, 
in  relation  to  the  future  doubtless  still  in  its  youth. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  our  age  as  the  "  age 
of  light  and  knowledge,"  of  civilization,  refinement,  and 
art  as  if  we  were  upon  the  very  millennial  dawn,  the 
darkness  of  error  all  fleeing  away.  But  how  narrow  is 
the  view  of  our  race  that  suggests  this  idea.  We  look 
at  the  arts  where  we  find  them  in  the  greatest  perfection, 
at  the  nations  and  races  that  have  made  the  greatest 
progress  and  lead  the  vanguard  of  humanity,  at  the  great 
lights  of  time  that  still  shine  for  us,  even  at  the  constella- 


LECTURES.  381 

tions  of  the  past  that  yet  gleam  in  the  highest  heaven 
above  us,  and  forget  there  is  a  darker  shading  to  the 
present.  Why,  even  among  nations  most  highly  favored, 
how  does  truth  still  struggle  with  error,  and  old  super- 
stition keep  fast  hold  on  the  popular  mind  ! 

A  few  years  ago,  I  witnessed  a  trial  at  law  which 
developed  the  singular  fact  that  in  a  community  of  at 
least  average  intelligence,  where  schools  and  churches 
were  abundant,  there  was  a  whole  neighborhood  of 
believers  in  witchcraft,  where  only  power  was  wanting 
to  revive  the  persecutions  of  Salem.  About  the  same 
time,  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  walls  of  Yale  College, 
a  sect  of  crazy  fanatics  was  broken  up  in  New  Haven, 
the  members  of  which  had  required  one  of  their  number 
to  sacrifice  his  life  to  appease  the  divine  wrath.  After 
almost  every  capital  execution,  the  sheriff  is  besieged 
with  requests  for  pieces  of  the  rope  used  in  the  hanging, 
to  be  worn  as  cures  and  preventives  of  disease,  and 
carried  as  charms  and  amulets  against  evil.  How  many 
persons  are  here  who  believe  in  seventh-son  doctors, 
haunted  houses,  or  who  would  hesitate  to  begin  a  journey 
or  any  important  undertaking  on  a  Friday?  Of  course, 
you  never  consult  the  Egyptian  astrologer  to  learn  some- 
thing about  your  future  wife  or  husband,  the  event  of  a 
lawsuit,  the  result  of  a  speculation,  or  any  other  problem 
of  chance  or  time  ;  but  a  great  many  of  your  neighbors 
have,  and  will  again,  pay  for  the  answers  they  get,  and 
hug  them  to  their  souls  as  the  responses  of  an  oracle. 
Certainly  the  genius  that  presided  at  Delphi  some  thou- 
sands of  years  ago  had  more  of  the  pomp  and  circum- 
stance of  prophecy  than  is  to  be  found  current  amongst 
us  to-day,  and  Numa,  who  was  tempted  to  read  the 
dark  hieroglyph  of  the  future  by  the  strange  spells  and 
sweet  fascinations  of  Egeria,  might  still  have  resisted  the 
blandishments  of  our  local  psuedo-prophets. 

The  Mormons  of  Utah  present  the  strange  anomaly  of 


382  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

a  people  within  this  Republic,  who  claim  to  derive  their 
government  directly  from  God,  and  who  revive  in  the 
nineteenth  century  the  patriarchal  institutions  of  the 
days  of  Abraham.  And  has  it  not  been  possible  in  our 
day  to  raise  immense  armies  ready  to  fight  to  the  death, 
anxious  to  rend  the  being  of  the  nation,  in  order  to  per- 
petuate an  institution  which  incarnates  the  very  spirit  of 
the  darkest  barbarism  ? 

All  these  things  are  in  the  United  States,  where  in- 
telligence is  more  generally  diffused  and  knowledge  more 
popularized  than  in  any  other  country.  But  the  nations 
that  can  claim  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  advanced  civili- 
zation do  not  number  a  third  of  the  population  of  the 
globe.  They  are  like  islands  raised  from  the  surrounding 
ocean  of  darkness.  If  we  would  study  the  different 
phases  of  the  intellectual  development  of  our  race  in  its 
progress  from  barbarism  to  refinement,  we  need  not  go 
to  the  pages  of  history  for  a  record  of  the  past — the 
present  affords  the  living  reality  of  that  of  which  history 
presents  only  the  dim  picture. 

Sitting  here  in  this  social  and  intellectual  circle,  sur- 
rounded by  the  arts  and  refinements  of  life,  we  are 
within  ten  days'  travel  of  wandering  tribes  of  Apaches 
and  Comanches,  fiercer  and  more  uncultivated  than  any  of 
the  barbarian  hordes  that  ever  yielded  to  the  conquering 
legions  of  Caesar.  Now,  the  Esquimaux  earths  himself 
in  his  smoky  hole  and  regales  his  appetite  with  the  fat 
of  the  seal  during  the  long  polar  winter,  while  the  South 
Sea  Islander  tattoos  his  body  with  hideous  figures,  buries 
his  father  alive  when  he  becomes  infirm,  and  eats  the 
enemy  whom  he  slays  in  battle.  Now,  the  Arab  roams 
over  the  desert,  re-lives  the  traditions  a  thousand  years 
old,  levies  his  contributions  upon  towns,  enslaves  the 
shipwrecked  stranger,  and  makes  his  pilgrimage  to  the 
temples  of  the  sacred  city,  whose  doors  are  closed 
against  the  "  Christian    dog."     Now,  the    face    of    the 


LECTURES.  383 

Turkish  woman  is  veiled  in  the  sunlight  of  heaven,  and 
she  has  no  soul  for  the  Moslem  paradise.  Now,  in  the 
depths  of  India,  is  still  continued  the  worship  of  the 
mysterious  Vishnu  and  awful  Brahma,  a  worship  whose 
rites  began  ages  and  ages  before  the  law  was  given  to 
Moses  upon  Sinai.  Now,  the  Persian  cherishes  the  faith 
of  Zoroaster  and  kneels  in  prayer  to  the  fire  and  the  sun. 
Now,  the  Tartar  adores  the  Grand  Lama,  and  believes 
the  soul  of  the  blest  passes  into  the  form  of  a  dog.  Now, 
the  Chinese  dwells  in  the  first  light  of  that  splendid 
civilization  that  was  arrested  at  its  early  dawn.  Five 
hundred  years  before  the  European,  he  invented  printing, 
and  still  uses  the  block  letter  and  prints  by  hand.  Cen- 
turies before  the  European,  he  invented  gunpowder,  and 
has  made  little  progress  in  its  application  to  the  arts 
of  peace  or  war,  and  to-day  he  is  essentially  the  same 
being  he  was  in  the  days  of  Confucius — furnishing  the 
one  example  in  history  of  a  nation  that  neither  pro- 
gresses nor  decays.  Now,  the  African  worships  bugs  and 
insects;  and  the  wild  Bushman  lives  and  dies,  whose  mind 
is  unillumined  with  one  ray  of  light  or  gleaming  percep- 
tion of  a  God. 

These  are  the  elements  that  surround  and  interpenetrate 
the  civilization  of  the  present.  Humanity  marches  for- 
ward, it  is  true  ;  not,  however,  with  its  unnumbered  hosts 
breast  to  breast  in  single  rank,  but  in  a  grand,  endless 
procession  that  reaches  from  the  noonday  of  civilization 
back  to  the  midnight  of  barbarism.  In  front  rank,  be- 
neath the  blazing  noontide,  move  the  nations  of  Europe 
and  America,  bearing  the  symbols  of  commerce  and  art. 
Before  them,  not  now  as  a  cloud  by  day,  but  a  fiery 
pillar,  brighter  than  the  brightest  noon,  moves  through 
the  heavens,  the  Holy  Bible.  And  these  nations,  rank 
behind  rank,  reach  from  the  noon  backward  to  the  dawn- 
ing of  the  morning,  and  there  in  the  dim  light  of  that 
day,  whose  morning  sun  never  dawns,  move  the  nations 


384  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

of  the  East,  the  Chinese,  the  Hindoos,  and  Persian  fire- 
worshippers  ;  and  these,  gleaming  with  barbaric  gold, 
bearing  aloft  their  rude  arts  and  the  idols  of  their 
worship,  reach  backward  towards  the  midnight ;  and 
there,  in  the  blackness  of  a  midnight  that  is  moonless  and 
starless  are  ranged  the  wild  tribes  of  Africa.  This  is  the 
grand  procession  of  humanity.  It  is  moving  onward  now. 
Its  march  commenced  at  the  birth  of  time.  Hark ! 
through  all  the  ages  that  are  gone  you  can  hear  the  echoes 
of  its  measured  tramp.  It  has  come  down  by  the  pyra- 
mids of  the  Nile,  by  the  fountains  of  Judaea,  by  the  temples 
of  Greece,  by  the  amphitheatres  of  Rome,  by  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ,  by  the  fires  of  the  martyrs,  by  the 
pageantry  of  the  chivalry,  by  the  schools  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  by  the  cities  and  palaces  of  modern  art,  its  ranks 
ever  changing,  never  changed,  its  march  ever  onward  and 
onward,  but,  oh  !  whither?  No  light  from  the  past  illu- 
mines, no  voice  from  the  future  proclaims,  no  portent 
from  Heaven  reveals.  Out  of  the  darkness,  into  the 
mystery,  onward  and  onward  forever  ! 

There  is  another  thought  in  connection  with  the  pres- 
ent hour,  that  should  give  it  a  ground  of  significance.  It 
is  a  familiar  expression  that  we  cannot  comprehend  the 
idea  of  eternity,  and  this  in  one  sense  is  true.  We  can- 
not grasp  it — the  mind  reels  and  sinks  in  the  attempt. 
And  yet  it  is  a  necessary  idea,  for  no  man  can  conceive 
of  a  beginning  to  time,  for  what  went  before  ?  And  no 
man  can  conceive  of  an  end  to  time,  for  what  shall  come 
after — and  time,  without  beginning  or  end,  is  eternity. 
Far  back  through  the  unrecorded  ages,  before  the  creation 
of  man,  science  can  trace  the  laws  of  matter,  and  they 
have  always  been  the  same.  The  stability  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  justice  of  God's  government  require  that 
physical  and  moral  laws  should  always  continue  the  same. 
Our  own  death  will  bring  us  into  new  relations  with 
spiritual  intelligence,  but  will  not  change  any  of  the  laws 


LECTURES.  385 

of  spirit  or  of  matter.  Now,  through  all  the  myriads  of 
the  stars  the  same  laws  are  in  operation  that  govern 
and  keep  in  order  the  motions  of  the  earth.  Now, 
through  all  the  illimitable  universe,  illimitable  as  space, 
spiritual  life  exists  in  obedience  to  the  divine  will,  and 
governed  by  the  same  moral  laws  that  govern  us.  Now, 
around  us  moves  the  grand  panorama  of  the  universe — 
above  us  roll  the  ceaseless  ages  of  the  everlasting.  Now, 
over  all  and  in  all  God  reigns  and  rules.  We  are  already 
in  eternity ! 


LECTURE  ON  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG. 

DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE    SACRAMENTO    LITERARY    INSTITUTE, 
APRIL  4,    187I. 

Emanuel  Swedenborg,  generally  regarded  by  the  great 
public  as  a  dreamer,  a  ghost-seer,  "  a  visionary,  and  elixir 
of  moonbeams,"  is  claimed  by  the  small  public  of  his 
admirers  to  be  a  divinely  illuminated  man,  the  author  of 
a  new  and  profound  philosophy,  the  true  interpreter  of 
the  Bible  and  Christian  religion.  In  his  strange  nature 
two  lives  seem  to  be  represented — sometimes  flowing  in 
parallel  streams,  sometimes  one  lost,  sometimes  the 
other;  sometimes  both  blended  into  one.  In  his  soul, 
as  in  a  mirror,  were  reflected  the  images  of  unseen 
objects,  which  are  regarded  on  the  one  hand  as  the  phan- 
tasms of  insanity ;  on  the  other,  as  the  realities  of  the 
spiritual  world. 

He  was  born  at  Stockholm,  Sweden,  in  1688,  about 
the  time  our  New  England  ancestors  were  hanging 
witches  at  Salem ;  in  an  age  distinguished  at  once  for 
its  intellectual  activity  and  splendid  scientific  discoveries, 
and  for  its  gross  superstition  and  universal  belief  in  com- 
munication with  the  supernatural  world.     He  never  was 

25 


386  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

married.  He  died  in  London  in  his  eighty-fifth  year,  three 
years  before  the  declaration  of  American  independence 
— at  a  period  when,  in  the  reaction  from  superstitious 
credulity,  the  skeptical  philosophy  was  supreme  in  the 
intellectual  circles  of  Europe,  teaching  men  to  believe  in 
nothing,  not  even  in  themselves.  His  father  was  a  Bishop 
in  the  Swedish  Church — a  branch  of  the  Lutheran — a 
man  of  great  learning,  active,  piety,  worldly  prudence, 
and  unworldly  wisdom.  In  his  youth  the  father  believed 
that  he,  too,  had  enjoyed  celestial  visions  and  the  com- 
panionship of  angels. 

In  his  childhood,  up  to  his  twelfth  year,  Emanuel  was 
regarded  by  his  father  as  one  set  apart  for  a  great  and 
peculiar  work.  It  was  noticed  that  while  at  prayer  his 
breath  was  often  curiously  withholden  within  him,  while 
his  soul  was  aglow  with  the  fervor  of  devotion.  He  was 
also  remarkable  for  great  intellectual  precocity  and  won- 
derful spiritual  insight.  In  his  youth  he  was  a  constant 
and  untiring  student,  going  to  nature,  when  possible, 
rather  than  to  books,  for  his  facts,  but  otherwise  not 
different  from  his  companions. 

He  never  was  an  ascetic.  He  grew  up  into  a  man  of  the 
world,  something  of  a  courtier  and  a  man  of  fashion  ;  his 
morality  of  that  respectable  type  which  passes  current 
in  social  life  ;  always,  however,  loving  truth  devotedly 
and  unselfishly  as  an  intellectual  pursuit,  and  always  an 
omnivorous  student. 

Emerson  says :  "  His  truth  and  training  could  not  fail 
to  be  extraordinary.  He  was  a  scholar  from  a  child. 
Such  a  boy  could  not  whistle  or  dance,  but  goes  prying 
into  Chemistry  and  Optics,  Philosophy,  Mathematics, 
and  Astronomy,  to  find  images  fit  for  the  measure  of  his 
versatile  and  capacious  brain.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight  he  was  made  Assessor  of  the  Board  of  Mines  by 
Charles  XII.  He  spent  four  years  at  the  Universities  in 
Holland,  Germany,  France,  and  England.     He  performed 


LECTURES.  387 

a  notable  feat  of  engineering  by  hauling  two  galleys,  five 
boats,  and  a  sloop,  fourteen  miles  overland  for  the  royal 
service.  In  1721  he  journeyed  over  Europe,  to  examine 
mines  and  smelting-works.  In  17 16  he  published  his 
Dedalus  Hyperboreus,  and  for  the  next  thirty  years  was 
constantly  engaged  in  the  preparation  and  publication  of 
his  scientific  works.  The  very  catalogue  of  these  works 
is  appalling  to  a  desultory  reader.  One  of  the  Missou- 
riums  and  Mastodons  of  literature,  he  is  not  to  be  meas- 
ured by  whole  colleges  of  ordinary  scholars.  His  stalwart 
presence  would  flutter  the  gowns  of  an  University." 

When  he  was  about  fifty  years  old,  having  made  the 
circuit  of  the  physical  sciences  of  his  day,  he  directed  his 
studies  to  the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  to  those  religious 
problems  which  sooner  or  later  present  themselves  to  every 
man  of  thought.  Two  or  three  years  afterwards  his  great 
intellectual  labors  began  to  tell  upon  his  faculties ;  his 
mind  became  obscured,  and  when  he  was  fifty-six  he  had 
a  short  attack  of  violent  insanity.  For  the  two  years 
preceding  his  unmistakable  madness  his  "  spiritual  diary  " 
is  little  else  than  a  record  of  his  dreams ;  and  while  it 
contains  flashes  of  his  genius  and  startling  guesses  at 
truth,  as  a  whole  it  is  scarcely  superior  to  the  literature 
of  a  fortune-teller's  dream-book. 

His  attack  of  mania  occurred  in  London.  Referring 
to  his  condition  then  and  for  a  year  previous,  his  biogra- 
pher says  :  "  Considering  that  Swedenborg  was  at  this 
time  at  the  crisis  of  a  great  physical  and  mental  change,  I 
have  no  surprise  to  spare  for  any  aberration  in  his  behav- 
ior. He  was  staggering  confused  in  an  access  of  new  light. 
As  Carlyle  says  :  '  Such  transitions  are  ever  full  of  pain  ; 
thus  the  eagle  when  he  moults  is  sickly,  and  to  attain  a 
new  beak  must  harshly  dash  off  the  old  one  against  the 
rocks.'  " 

Swedenborg  dates  what  he  calls  his  "  divine  illumina- 
tion "  from  his  recovery ;  and   from  that  time   until  his 


388  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

death,  twenty-seven  years  afterwards,  he  had  almost  at 
will  those  wonderful  visions,  in  which  he  believed  that 
Heaven  and  Hell  and  the  whole  economy  of  spiritual 
things  were  as  "  level  to  his  apprehension  as  daylight  to 
the  eye  "  ;  and  which,  taken  in  connection  with  his  ca- 
pacity, culture,  and  attainments,  his  sober  belief  in  the 
reality  of  what  he  saw,  his  far-reaching  insight  opening 
great  perspectives  of  thought,  and  the  philosophy,  subtle 
in  meaning,  sublime  in  outline,  which  he  taught  as  a  part 
of  the  revelation  he  received,  make  him,  whether  we  con- 
sider him  sane  or  crazy,  a  phenomenal  man — a  character 
alone  and  apart  in  the  whole  history  of  our  race.  Hence- 
forward he  regarded  his  past  studies  but  as  a  learner's 
"  copy-book "  ;  and  he  paid  no  more  attention  to  his 
scientific  attainments  than  we  do  to  the  motions  of  the 
lips  in  speaking,  or  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  in  reading. 

At  a  later  period  of  his  life  Swedenborg  was  undoubt- 
edly a  clairvoyant.  We  know  very  little  more  of  clair- 
voyance than  this :  that  there  are  at  rare  intervals  persons 
who  have  interior  perceptions  of  things  which  lie  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  organs  of  sense ;  who  seem  to  have  the 
power  of  being  mentally  in  two  places  at  the  same  time. 
It  is  as  well  established  as  any  fact  of  clairvoyance  can  be 
by  historical  evidence,  that  on  the  evening  of  the  19th  of 
July,  1759,  Swedenborg,  while  he  was  at  Gottenburg,  saw 
and  correctly  described  a  fire  then  raging  at  Stockholm, 
three  hundred  miles  away ;  that  he  mentioned  the  streets 
through  which  it  spread,  various  buildings  as  they 
caught ;  that  he  was  greatly  agitated  while  it  was  burn- 
ing, and  became  calm  when  it  was  extinguished,  a  few 
doors  from  his  own  house. 

This,  which  might  at  one  time  have  been  accepted  as 
evidence  of  his  divine  credentials,  would  now  be  only  re- 
garded as  going  to  show  that  there  are  certain  occult  fac- 
ulties in  human  nature,  acting  under  peculiar  conditions, 
which  the  future  may  or  may  not  utilize  and  explain.     To- 


LECTURES.  389 

day  we  do  not  certainly  know  but  a  diseased  brain  may 
be  one  of  these  conditions ;  and  certain  physiologists 
maintain  that  it  is. 

We  understand  so  little  of  the  operations  of  the  mind 
in  its  every-day  moods,  that  its  abnormal  conditions  ex- 
cite our  surprise  rather  because  we  are  unaccustomed  to 
them  than  by  reason  of  any  special  mystery. 

If  you  were  required  to  sit  down  at  once  and  make  a 
statement  of  all  you  know  upon  every  subject,  you  might 
be  surprised  to  find  the  catalogue  so  short.  But  if  every- 
thing you  do  know,  from  your  earliest  reading  of  your 
mother's  face  up  to  the  latest  memory  of  last  night's 
dream,  could  be  photographed,  you  would  be  more  as- 
tonished at  its  extent ;  though  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
says  that  in  the  same  manner  the  London  Times  was 
sent  into  Paris  under  the  wing  of  a  carrier-pigeon,  the  hu- 
man brain  is  large  enough  to  hold  a  photographic  copy, 
on  a  microscopic  scale,  of  every  impression  received  in  the 
longest  life.  Now,  where  is  all  this  knowledge  when  you 
are  not  thinking  about  it — when  it  is  not  consciously  pres- 
ent in  your  mind  ?  How  is  it  kept  stored  away,  ready  for 
future  use  ?  And  what  part  of  it  have  you  consciously 
acquired  from  instruction,  by  observation,  by  voluntary 
study,  and  what  part  by  the  unwatched  processes  of  your 
mind — self-evolution — growth  ?  And  how  has  that  portion 
you  have  consciously  acquired  from  without  been  assimi- 
lated to  you,  until  it  ceases  to  be  the  thing  you  learned, 
and  becomes  you — a  part  of  your  intellectual  power — just 
as  sunshine  may  become  stone,  coal,  rose-bud,  or  cucum- 
ber? Why  is  it  that  your  thought,  memory,  fancy,  will 
sometimes  obey  your  will,  and  at  others  not,  as  if  the  intel- 
lectual circuit  were  broken,  and  each  mental  faculty  were 
acting  upon  some  caprice  of  its  own  ?  You  meet  an  ac- 
quaintance twenty  times  ;  each  time  his  face  suggests  his 
name  ;  the  twenty-first  you  cannot  get  it  for  all  your 
coaxing,  but  when  his  back  is  turned  you  find  it  on  your 


390  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

tongue.  How  easily  after  school  was  out  you  could  an- 
swer the  question  you  missed  at  recitation  ?  What  bright 
things  you  think  of  going  home,  which  you  ought  to  have 
said  at  the  party  !  What  strong  arguments  and  apt  illus- 
trations suggest  themselves,  after  the  speech  is  made  or 
the  article  is  published. 

We  should  explain  why  we  blush,  or  laugh,  or  weep 
involuntarily ;  why  we  are  at  times  fluent,  at  others 
tongue-tied ;  how  a  perfume  can  recall  old  memories, 
distant  scenes,  absent  faces  ;  how  thoughts  come  to  us  in 
words,  or  rise  before  us  like  pictures,  before  we  waste  our 
wonder  on  the  facts  that  the  somnambulist  can  write  page 
after  page  correctly  in  the  dark ;  or  that  "  Blind  Tom," 
who  cannot  frame  twenty  words  into  an  intelligible  sen- 
tence, and  seems  scarcely  conscious  of  his  personal  identity, 
can  repeat,  after  one  hearing,  the  longest  and  most  diffi- 
cult pieces  of  music,  tell  every  note  that  is  sounded  when 
an  arm  is  thrown  at  full  length  on  the  key-board  of  a 
piano,  and  give  expression  to  his  feelings,  voiceless  in 
words,  in  improvised  music  ;  or  that  an  untaught  negro 
boy  can  instantly  solve  complicated  questions  of  arithme- 
tic, by  an  intuitive  method  which  he  cannot  impart  to  the 
most  skilful  accountant — which  a  La  Place  or  Newton 
could  not  learn :  or  that  Coleridge,  awaking  from  sleep, 
finds  a  poem  in  his  mind  waiting  to  be  written  down  ; 
that  Napoleon  sees  his  star,  brightening  and  paling,  the 
portent  of  victory  or  defeat ;  Socrates  hears  the  voice  of 
his  familiar  spirit ;  and  Joan  of  Arc  beholds  legions  of 
angels  in  the  air. 

The  mind  can  no  more  comprehend  the  process  of 
thought  than  the  eye  can  see  itself,  or  any  form  of  matter 
act  as  its  own  solvent.  In  closest  introspection  we  learn 
perhaps  least  of  the  mind's  methods,  for  in  the  very  act 
of  self-examination  we  divert  the  faculties  from  their 
natural,  unconscious  play,  and  there  is  nothing  to  watch. 
It  is  as  if  the  actors  should  all  take  their  seats  with  the 


LECTURES.  391 

audience  to  watch  the  play,  leaving  the  stage  vacant. 
If  we  could  only  double  on  ourselves,  and  catch  ourselves 
unawares ! 

It  is  only  when  we  are  self-unconscious  that  we  do  our 
best.  Sometimes  we  have  astonished  ourselves,  as  well 
as  our  friends,  by  an  unwonted  flash  of  wit ;  the  repartee 
or  retort  comes  to  our  lips  itself  as  if  lying  in  wait  for 
the  occasion.  Like  meteoric  stones,  or  objects  thrown 
by  the  spirits,  we  do  not  see  them  until  they  strike. 
A  powerful  stump-speaker  of  this  coast,  a  man  self-con- 
tained, and  oaken-fibred  in  the  texture  of  mind  and  body, 
says  that  often  in  the  fervor  of  speech  he  seems  to  get 
outside  himself,  and  listen  to  the  words  which  come  from 
his  mouth,  while  his  mind  runs  by  its  acquired  momen- 
tum ;  but  he  must  stand  still  and  listen  ;  if  he  attempt  to 
put  in  a  word,  or  pry  into  the  secret  of  the  movement,  the 
machine  stops,  and  he  has  to  take  hold  of  the  crank  himself. 
Burns,  sitting  down  to  write,  not  knowing  what  would 
come  to  him,  says :  "  It  may  be  a  sang,  it  may  be  a 
sermon."  Thackeray  was  surprised  into  a  knowledge  of 
his  own  genius  by  the  exultation  of  Becky  Sharp  at  her 
husband's  defiance  to  Lord  Steyne,  in  the  novel  he  was 
himself  writing.  Hawthorne  sobbed  like  a  heart-broken 
child  over  the  pathetic  and  tragic  passages  in  his  own 
stories.  Sir  Walter  Scott  would  say  to  his  muse  :  "  Spin, 
ye  jade,  spin."  Milton  saw  with  an  inward  sight ;  and 
Homer  invoked  the  heavenly  goddess  to  sing  the  tale  of 
Troy.  All  poets  and  novelists  of  creative  power  bear 
testimony  that  the  creations  of  their  brains  often 
become  to  them  living  beings,  distinct  individualities, 
uttering  their  own  thoughts,  and  creating  their  own  situa- 
tion. In  fact,  the  dividing  line  drawn  between  genius 
and  talent  is :  "  Genius  does  what  it  must ;  talent  what 
it  can." 

We  have  all  at  times  experienced  a  state  of  double 
consciousness.     We  have  dreamed  we  were  dreaming,  and 


392  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

striven  to  awake.  Before  going  to  sleep  we  often  pass 
through  a  condition  that  is  neither  sleeping  nor  waking. 
We  know  we  are  lying  in  bed,  and  are  conscious  of  all  our 
surroundings ;  broken  sentences  sound  in  our  ears ;  we 
listen  to  or  take  part  in  a  dialogue ;  strange  scenes  and 
faces  rise  dimly  around  us ;  we  know  we  are  dreaming, 
and  that  if  we  will  turn  over  the  illusion  will  be  dispelled. 
After  a  dose  of  morphine,  in  sickness,  our  bed  is  floating 
in  the  air,  multitudes  of  spectral  faces,  horrible  and 
grotesque,  are  leering  and  grinning  around  as  in  devilish 
mockery,  while  we  know  the  bed  is  on  the  floor  and  no  one 
present  but  the  nurse.  Now,  these  scenes,  faces,  shapes, 
voices,  are  but  our  own  unconscious  thoughts  thrown 
from  within  outward  ;  our  fancies  putting  on  shape  and 
semblance,  in  reason's  despite — like  Macbeth's  air-drawn 
dagger,  the  bodiless  creations  of  the  brain. 

Now,  imagine  a  man  whose  unconscious  mental  secre- 
tions have  been  drawn  for  fifty  years  of  study  from  a 
circuit  of  inquiry  wide  as  the  knowledge  of  his  day  ;  who 
in  the  love  of  scientific  truth  had  followed  every  path 
of  nature  open  to  him  into  new  fields  and  undiscovered 
regions;  who  had  sounded  the  deeps  of  philosophical 
speculation ;  who  had  tracked  the  soul  to  its  fastness  ; 
who  had  endeavored  to  purge  the  film  from  his  spiritual 
sight  by  gazing  on  the  undimmed  brightness  of  the  Crea- 
tor, and  who  had  been  dazzled,  dazed,  perhaps,  by  the 
Divine  effulgence ;  invest  him  with  the  creative  power  of 
the  poet  which  works  only  in  the  dark  ;  give  him  this 
state  of  dual  consciousness  we  have  all  experienced,  but 
in  a  degree  far  more  vivid  and  intense  than  we  have 
known — so  real  that  while  he  stands  on  earth,  in  form  of 
clay,  with  mortal  breath,  senses,  presence,  his  thoughts 
are  projected  from  him,  and  compass  him  about  as  objec- 
tive realities — become  his  continent  and  horizon,  his  earth 
and  sea,  and  air  and  light,  his  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
and  star-crowned  sky,  and  you  will  have,  I  think,  the  con- 


LECTURES.  393 

ditions  under  which  Swedenborg  believed  the  veil  of 
mortality  was  lifted,  and  he  saw  the  scenes  of  other 
worlds,  heard  the  voices  of  angels,  and  received  a  revela- 
tion from  God. 

His  own  theory  and  explanation  were  quite  different 
from  this.  He  taught  that  there  is  a  spiritual  creation, 
the  type  of  and  corresponding  to  the  material  creation  ; 
that  there  is  a  spiritual  sun,  the  immediate  source  of 
spiritual  life,  as  the  material  sun  is  of  physical  life,  that 
interpenetrating  the  earth,  from  its  central  fires  to  its 
tenderest  blade  of  grass,  is  a  spiritual  earth  ;  that  per- 
meating our  natural  body  is  a  spiritual  body,  with  spirit- 
ual senses  capable  of  taking  cognizance  of  spiritual  things. 
Thus  we  are  in  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds  at  the 
same  time,  drawing  light  and  life  from  both,  and  only 
the  grossness  of  the  clay  tenement  that  we  wear  as  out- 
side covering  and  shell  prevents  us  from  realizing  the 
spiritual  world  of  which  we  are  unconscious  inhabitants. 
He  claimed  that  by  the  special  gift  of  his  peculiar  organ- 
ization he  could  husk  himself  from  this  physical  shell, 
take  off  his  carnal  "  overcoat,"  and  bring  himself  into 
direct  relations  with  spiritual  things  and  intelligences. 
In  this  abnormal  condition  he  believed  that  he  explored 
Heaven  and  Hell,  and  discovered  an  intermediate 
world,  not  recognized  in  Protestant  theology,  and  some- 
what different  from  the  Catholic  purgatory  ;  also,  that 
he  met  spirits  from  the  planets,  who  described  to  him 
and  enabled  him  to  see  the  general  condition  of  affairs 
and  manner  of  life  in  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Venus,  Mer- 
cury, and  the  Moon.  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  planets 
are  members  of  the  human  family,  our  fellow-citizens  of 
the  universe.  What  he  says  of  them  seems  ridiculous  to 
us,  but  perhaps  a  description  of  us  would  seem  quite  as 
absurd  to  them.  He  says,  indeed,  the  accounts  of  the 
wars  on  Earth  are  incredible  to  our  neighbors  in  Jupiter. 
They  cannot  comprehend,  either,  how  luxury  and  want, 


394  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

splendor  and  squalor,  learning  and  ignorance,  should 
be  here  next-door  neighbors,  and  jostle  each  other  in 
the  streets.  They  think  their  faces  far  more  beautiful 
than  ours,  and  their  carriage  more  graceful,  though  they 
do  not  walk  erect,  but  inclined,  using  their  arms  in  a 
kind  of  swimming  motion.  Jupiter  is  not  only  the  larg- 
est, but  most  densely  inhabited  of  all  the  planets.  The 
people  are  mild  and  gentle.  They  live  about  thirty  of 
our  years.  About  a  year  before  they  die  they  lose  their 
hair.  Baldness  is  a  certain  sign  of  approaching  death. 
No  hair  restorative  will  save  them.  Death,  however,  is 
without  pain,  and  brings  no  regret,  as  they  know  it  is 
only  a  transition  to  a  higher  life. 

Our  nearest  neighbors — on  the  Moon — are  dwarfs  not 
larger  than  children  seven  years  old  with  us.  In  Saturn 
they  are  religious,  but  not  scientific.  In  Mercury,  in- 
quisitive and  arrogant ;  loving  knowledge  for  the  sense 
of  personal  superiority  it  confers,  and  not  for  its  benign 
uses.  Venus  is  like  the  Earth  in  this,  it  has  very  good 
and  very  bad  people.  Mars  seems  to  be  the  best  of  the 
lot,  and  society  there  is  quite  angelic.  It  may  be  con- 
soling to  our  vanity  to  learn  that  they  do  not  know  how 
to  read  and  write  on  either  of  the  planets,  have  no  rail- 
roads and  telegraphs,  have  never  made  a  sewing-machine, 
and  never  struck  oil.  With  all  the  faults,  shortcomings, 
and  miseries  of  human  life,  our  world  seems  a  more 
interesting  if  not  a  happier  place  to  live  in  than  either  of 
the  other  planets  as  reported  by  Swedenborg. 

He  teaches  that  the  Bible  is  divinely  inspired,  but  that 
it  has  an  interior  as  well  as  a  literal  meaning ;  one  mean- 
ing to  men,  another  to  the  angels  of  wisdom,  another  to 
the  angels  of  love.  The  higher  a  spirit  arises  in  the 
realms  of  being  the  greater  depth  of  truth  and  divine 
beauty  will  he  discover  in  the  sacred  scriptures. 

The  Last  Judgment,  as  described  in  the  Apocalypse, 
has  already  occurred.     That  great  assize  of  humanity  was 


LECTURES.  395 

held  in  1759,  and  Swedenborg  alone  of  mortals  in  the 
flesh  was  allowed  to  witness  its  awful  scenes. 

After  death  man  does  not  pass  immediately  to  Heaven 
or  Hell,  but  into  a  spiritual  world  so  similar  to  the  Earth, 
novitiates,  mistaking  their  spiritual  for  natural  bodies,  are 
often  unable  to  realize  they  are  dead.  In  this  limbo  of 
spirits  Swedenborg  met  Calvin,  and  disputed  with  him 
on  some  point  of  doctrine,  but  so  far  from  being  able  to 
convert  the  great  Genevan,  he  could  not  even  convince 
him  he  was  dead. 

In  this  intermediate  state  the  predominant  love  of  the 
heart  gradually  asserts  itself  until  it  becomes  a  supreme 
and  governing  passion.  The  good  lose  all  evil  desires 
and  imaginations ;  the  bad  lose  the  sense  of  moral  re- 
straint, and  each  is  carried  by  the  momentum  of  the 
character  formed  on  Earth  to  the  society  and  place  most 
congenial  to  his  feelings,  whether  in  Heaven  or  Hell. 

Both  good  and  evil  spirits,  in  the  Swedenborgian 
system,  by  some  kind  of  spiritual  magnetism,  influence 
life  upon  Earth.  Our  purest  inspirations  are  airs  from 
Heaven ;  even  the  blasts  from  Hell  are  not  wasted  in 
this  spiritual  economy,  but  utilized  in  communicating 
to  business,  commerce,  and  to  the  government  of  Church 
and  State  the  energy  of  self-love,  which  is  a  necessary 
element  in  human  affairs,  and  which  the  self-denying 
Christian  spirit  fails  to  furnish.  The  most  eminent  living 
student  of  Swedenborg  says  the  Devil  has  been  greatly 
misunderstood  ;  that  he  is  fast  becoming  quite  an  accom- 
plished gentleman,  who  in  his  busy  self-seeking  way 
manages  to  accomplish  a  great  deal  of  good  without  mean- 
ing it.  "  He  has  been  from  the  first  our  only  heaven- 
appointed  churchman  and  statesman — the  very  man  of 
men  for  doing  the  showy  work  of  the  world,  namely  : 
persuading,  preaching,  cajoling,  governing,  which  is  re- 
quired to  be  done,  and  which  is  fitly  paid  for  by  the  honors 
and  emoluments  of    the  world.     What  kind  of    a  Pope 


396  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

would  Fenelon  have  made,  and  how  would  political 
interests  thrive  with  the  Apostle  John  at  the  head  of 
affairs.  I  confess  for  my  part  I  would  bestow  my  vote 
upon  Louis  Napoleon  or  General  Jackson  any  day,  simply 
because  they  are,  I  presume,  very  inferior  men  spiritually, 
and  therefore  incomparably  better  qualified  for  ruling 
other  men,  which  is  spiritually  the  lowest  of  human  voca- 
tions." This,  however,  was  written  before  Sedan  had 
demonstrated  the  incapacity  of  Louis  Napoleon  to  grap- 
ple with  great  events  in  the  conflicts  of  physical  force. 

If  we  could  really  believe  that  Swedenborg  had  seen 
Heaven  and  Hell,  we  would  desert  all  other  books  to 
read  his.  If,  however,  we  consider  his  descriptions  of 
spiritual  scenery  as  the  pictures  of  his  own  imagination, 
we  shall  find  them  inferior  to  Dante's  in  grandeur  of 
conception,  unity  of  design,  and  perfection  of  detail. 
The  fact  that  he  believed  he  was  divinely  illuminated 
prevented  him  from  sitting  in  judgment  on  himself  and 
sifting  his  thoughts.  The  trifling  and  the  grand  were  of 
equal  importance,  as  the  whole  was  a  divine  revelation. 

His  general  idea  of  Heaven  is  that  it  is  an  earthly 
paradise ;  with  beautiful  landscapes,  mountains,  val- 
leys and  plains,  woods  and  fountains,  and  flowing 
streams ;  with  flowers,  fruits,  and  sweet  odors ;  with 
dawn  and  twilight ;  with  villas,  cottages,  palaces,  cities, 
and  celestial  societies.  Everything  lovely  and  of  good 
report  on  Earth  has  its  etherealized  counterpart  in 
Heaven.  Angels  are  men  and  women,  in  the  forms 
they  were  on  Earth,  etherealized  and  made  beautiful 
by  the  characters  which  shine  through  them.  They 
have  homes,  individual  characters,  active  employments, 
studies,  arts,  amusements,  duties,  and  friendships. 
They  marry,  and  enjoy  all  the  delights  of  mutual  love. 
The  longer  they  live  the  younger  they  grow  ;  or  rather 
the  nearer  they  approach  the  perfection  of  immortal 
youth.     There  are  many  Heavens,  and  different  orders 


LECTURES.  397 

of  angels.  There  are  spiritual  angels,  to  whom  the 
wisdom  of  God  is  revealed  as  light  to  the  eye  ;  and 
celestial  angels,  to  whom  His  love  is  revealed  as  a  glow 
in  the  heart. 

There  are  as  many  Hells  as  Heavens,  and  the  spir- 
its of  the  wicked  take  up  their  several  abodes  in  the 
society  most  congenial  to  their  depraved  inclinations. 
They  too,  marry,  but  their  marriages  are  not  made  in 
Heaven.  Though  Hell  is  a  place  of  abomination  to  the 
pure,  it  is  not  necessarily  one  of  continual  torment  to  the 
wicked.  Their  punishment  seems  to  be  that  their  appear- 
ance, character,  and  all  their  surroundings  are  wrought  into 
the  image  of  their  sinful  desires.  Their  own  deformity 
may  seem  beautiful  to  them,  and  what  should  disgust, 
delights.  They  realize  the  terrible  self-imprecation: 
"  Evil,  be  thou  my  good." 

Swedenborg  finds  one  law  in  every  condition  of 
spiritual  life.  "  What  a  spirit  is  he  sees."  What 
exists  in  the  soul  as  an  affection  or  thought  becomes  a 
tangible  thing  to  the  sense.  If  an  angel  desires  to  go 
anywhere,  he  does  not  have  to  pass  through  space,  but 
his  desire  accomplishes  the  result,  and  he  is  there. 
If  he  long  for  the  society  of  another  angel,  he  is  trans- 
lated to  his  presence.  When  he  feels  the  love  of  God 
in  its  divinest  fulness,  that  is  his  heavenly  noon ;  if 
that  love  grows  dim,  the  sombre  twilight  comes  on, 
which  is  the  only  night  known  in  Heaven.  The  ap- 
pearance, the  spiritual  scenery,  the  surroundings,  the 
society  of  every  spirit,  whether  in  Heaven  or  Hell, 
correspond  to  the  loves,  desires,  and  thoughts  of  his 
heart.  What  he  desires,  he  is  ;  what  he  thinks,  he  sees  ; 
what  he  loves,  he  possesses. 

The  following  passage  from  his  Arcana  is  a  very 
literal  illustration  of  his  theory.  He  says :  "  I  heard 
two  Presidents  of  the  English  Royal  Society — Sir 
Hans    Sloane   and    Martin    Folks — conversing    together 


398  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

in  the  spiritual  world  concerning  the  existence  of  seeds 
and  eggs,  and  their  production  on  earth,  Sloane  insist- 
ing that  nature  was  endued  from  creation  with  the 
power  of  producing  such  things  from  the  sun's  heat. 
Folks  said  the  power  of  production  is  continually 
from  God  in  nature.  To  determine  the  dispute,  a 
beautiful  bird  was  exhibited  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  and 
he  was  told  to  examine  and  see  whether  in  the  least 
thing  it  differed  from  a  similar  bird  on  Earth.  He 
held  it  in  his  hand,  examined  it,  and  said  there  was  no 
difference.  At  the  same  time  he  knew  that  the  bird  was 
nothing  else  than  the  external  representative  of  an  affection 
of  a  certain  angel,  and  that  it  would  vanish  with  the  angel's 
affection,  as  indeed  it  is." 

From  this  theory  of  correspondence  between  the 
interior  and  exterior  world — the  world  of  thought  and 
of  appearance — by  a  grand  generalization  Sweden- 
borg  reaches  the  doctrine  which  distinguishes  his 
philosophy  from  every  other.  His  constant  rule,  as 
stated  by  Emerson,  is  that  "  Nature  is  always  self- 
similar."  Thus  :  given  water  circling  in  an  eddy,  and 
you  have  the  revolutions  of  the  planets  around  the 
sun — of  the  universe  around  its  pivotal  centre.  Given 
the  life  of  a  man,  you  have  the  history  of  the  world, 
for  "  the  history  of  our  race  is  but  the  life  of  a  co- 
lossal man,  reaching  from  the  creation  to  the  last  day." 
But  in  his  most  daring  speculation  he  transcends 
nature.  As  each  spirit  lives  in  a  world  which  is  the 
manifestation  of  his  interior  self,  so  the  whole  universe 
is  but  the  outward  manifestation  of  the  being  God. 
There  is  but  one  reality — God  ;  all  other  things  only 
seem  to  be.  Neither  natural  bodies,  nor  spiritual 
bodies ;  neither  earth,  nor  sun,  nor  stars  ;  neither  men, 
nor  angels,  nor  demons,  have  any  existence  save  as 
God  imparts  to  each  a  portion  of  himself.  All  the 
universe,   animate    and    inanimate,    material   and   spirit- 


LECTURES.  399 

ual,  is  but  the  rainbow  of  His  shining  presence  over- 
arching universal  space.  There  has  been  no  creation, 
in  the  sense  of  God  making  man  and  making  matter. 
As  matter  and  life  are  simply  God's  thoughts,  they 
are  co-eternal  with  him,  and  all  the  changes  through 
which  they  pass  are  but  the  outward  manifestations  of 
His  will.  We  need  not  seek  through  nature  for  a  first 
cause — cause  and  effect  are  one. 

This  is  not  a  theory  of  moral  government,  but  of 
creation  ;  for  Swedenborg  avoids  the  conclusion  of 
Pantheism  by  teaching  "  that  God  imparts  himself  so 
unreservedly  to  man "  that  man  will  always  seem  to 
be  and  always  believe  himself  to  be  real.  The  purest 
angel,  though  forever  approaching  the  Divine  Light, 
and  brightening  in  its  approach,  will  never  be  re- 
absorbed in  the  Infinite  Being:  and  the  most  fallen 
spirit,  though  forever  falling  in  darkness,  will  never 
lose  all  the  Divine  Spark  originally  imparted  to  it. 
Of  all  beings  who  ever  wore  form  of  clay,  only  Christ 
knew  that  he  was  of  the  very  substance  of  God.  With 
Him  alone  the  dividing  line  in  self-consciousness  was 
removed,  and  He  knew  that  He  and  the  Father  were  one. 

Swedenborg's  theory  of  spiritual  bodies  is  almost 
restated  in  scientific  terms  in  a  recent  lecture  by  Pro- 
fessor Huxley,  in  which  he  shows  that  life  is  only  finely 
organized  matter,  of  the  same  constituents  and  pro- 
portions in  every  form,  from  the  stinging  nettle  up  to 
man.  Then,  having  reached  the  brink  of  materialism, 
this  eminent  naturalist  corroborates  the  grand  specula- 
tion of  the  religious  mystic  by  admitting  that  he  uses 
"  a  material  terminology,"  for  convenience,  but  that 
matter  and  mind  are  both  names  for  unknown  quantities, 
and  that  the  existence  of  neither  can  be  demonstrated. 

It  is  true  this  idea  of  Swedenborg's,  that  we  are  but 
shadows,  cannot  be  carried  into  daylight  and  common 
life.     We  know  that  we  are  real,  and  surrounded  by  real- 


400  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

ities.  Let  us  see,  however,  if  the  doctrine,  so  false  to 
reason  and  to  sense,  may  not  be  true  to  the  imagination 
— the  inner  sight. 

In  the  days  when  the  stoics  taught  that  suicide  might 
become  an  act  of  the  highest  heroism  and  virtue,  one  of 
the  disciples  of  that  philosophy  seemed  partly  to  regret 
and  partly  to  exult  in  the  thought  that  this  was  one  pre- 
rogative that  God  did  not  enjoy  with  man.  The  Divine 
Being  could  not  destroy  Himself. 

Imagine  for  one  moment  that  this  limit  to  Omnipo- 
tence could  be  removed.  Suppose  the  Life  of  the 
universe  could  be  extinguished — that  the  all-sustaining 
Power  could  be  destroyed — that  God  could  die  !  What 
then  ?  Would  day  succeed  to  night,  the  seasons  come 
and  go,  and  man's  life  go  on  in  successive  generations? 
Would  disembodied  souls  continue  to  exist  as  incorpo- 
real entities  ?  Would  the  stars  rush  together  in  the 
mad  vortex  of  ruin,  and  the  world  be  piled  on  world  in 
the  final  conflagration  of  matter?  No!  Instant  anni- 
hilation would  ensue.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  crea- 
tion would  vanish  like  a  dream.  The  empty  black  void 
of  nothingness  would  swallow  the  universe  in  rayless  and 
eternal  night ! 

We  are  but  shadows ;  shadows  all  that  we  pursue. 
There  must  be  substance  somewhere.  That  substance, 
the  Divine  Reality,  science  and  sense  can  never  find. 
Science  in  investigating  physical  laws  uses  a  "  material 
terminology,"  on  the  assumption  that  mind  and  matter 
are  what  they  seem.  At  last,  however,  reason  and 
sense  pause  at  the  ultimate  question  :  "  Whence  is  all 
this — why,  and  whither?"  Then  Swedenborg  takes  up 
the  system,  transmutes  it  with  a  touch — dissolves  opaque 
bodies  in  the  Divine  Light — saying :  "  To  this  point 
sense  and  reason  are  right,  but  as  an  ultimate  truth  there 
is  no  mind,  there  is  no  matter — only  God  is,  or  was,  or 
will  be !  " 


LECTURES.  401 

LECTURE  ON  MORALS  AND  POLITICS. 

Dean  Swift  in  his  history  of  Ireland  devotes  one  chap- 
ter to  snakes.  It  consists  of  the  single  sentence  "  There 
are  no  snakes  in  Ireland." 

I  doubt  not  there  are  those  who  believe  that  a  lecture 
upon  the  subject  of  "  Morals  and  Politics  "  might  be  con- 
densed into  a  sentence  equally  brief  and  equally  true — 
"  There  is  no  connection  between  morals  and  politics." 

It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  this  sentiment  is  not  a 
stronger  satire  upon  the  morals  than  upon  the  politics  of 
the  age.     If  it  be  true,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  morals. 

In  a  monarchy  the  morals  of  the  Court  may  be  better 
or  worse  than  those  of  the  people.  Under  Trajan  and 
the  Antonines  they  were  doubtless  better,  under  Charles 
the  Second,  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  and  the  dethroned  Isa- 
bella of  Spain  probably  worse  ;  but  in  a  popular  govern- 
ment if  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  community  has  not 
vigor  enough  to  control  public  affairs  its  influence  will 
soon  cease  to  be  felt  upon  private  character.  That  in- 
definite something  we  call  the  public  is  but  the  aggrega- 
tion of  units,  and  public  corruption  is  the  sure  indication 
of  general  individual  weakness  or  dishonesty. 

Speculative  opinions  are  well  enough  :  we  do  not  lack 
culture,  what  we  want  is  moral  force,  illustrated  in  char- 
acter, embodied  in  action,  felt  in  results.  That  highly 
respectable  morality  whose  chief  pleasure  is  self-admira- 
tion and  that  supposes  because  it  is  virtuous  there  "  will 
be  no  more  cakes  and  ale "  ;  that  fireside,  sentimental 
morality,  too  precious  for  public  use,  kept  strictly  for 
home  consumption,  that  takes  its  ease  in  slippers  and 
morning-gown,  indulges  in  the  luxury  of  fault-finding  but 
shrinks  from  the  labor  of  preventing  or  correcting  faults ; 
that  civited,  perfumed,  "  odi  profanum  vulgum  "  moral- 
ity that  fears  to  mingle  with  the  multitude  lest  it  should 

touch    pitch    and  be    defiled ;    that  timid  morality  that 
26 


402  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  wishes  it  were  bed-time  and  all  were  well,"  may  have 
grace  enough  to  save  itself  but  not  enough  to  save  any- 
thing else,  and  in  saving  self  saves  that  which  is  scarcely 
worth  salvation. 

There  are  men  "  and  we  have  heard  them  praised  and 
that  highly"  who  wear  good  clothes,  pay  their  debts, 
their  taxes  and  their  pew-rents,  subscribe  to  charities,  eat 
with  their  forks,  and  do  all  things  the  usages  of  polite 
society  and  the  etiquette  of  a  good  conscience  require 
decently  and  in  order,  and  who  fancy  they  are  public- 
spirited  good  citizens,  who  would  suffer  a  note  to  be  pro- 
tested rather  than  go  to  a  primary  election :  or  wear  a 
last  year's  coat,  enter  a  pest-house,  join  the  Mormons  and 
take  seven  wives  or  do  any  ridiculous  or  absurd  thing,  as 
soon  as  they  would  attend  a  political  convention.  They 
know  that  not  more  than  half  their  fellow-citizens  are 
absolutely  perfect  and  without  flaw.  If  they  have  to 
employ  a  lawyer,  a  doctor,  a  mechanic,  a  clerk,  a  porter, 
or  a  girl  in  the  kitchen  they  give  the  matter  personal  at- 
tention and  are  not  always  able  to  suit  themselves  ;  but 
in  politics  they  act  as  though  they  supposed  there  was 
an  elective  affinity  between  offices  and  good  men,  and 
that  whenever  an  office  is  to  be  filled  the  right  man  will 
be  drawn  to  the  position  by  the  mysterious  magnetism 
that  "  place  "  has  for  integrity  and  capacity. 

Their  conversation,  however,  is  very  inconsistent  with 
this  supposition.  In  their  vocabulary  the  word  politician 
expresses  everything  that  is  bad.  It  is  the  most  libellous 
in  the  language.  A  politician  is — Well,  a  bummer,  who 
lives  on  the  precarious  charity  of  free  lunches  when  out 
of  office,  and  grows  rich  on  public  plunder  when  in. 

It  is  a  pity  for  these  men  that  some  kind  of  machinery 
of  government  could  not  be  devised  that  would  run  it- 
self. Their  virtue  is  not  of  a  kind  that  saves  states,  re- 
dresses or  prevents  wrongs. 

There  are  others,  not   many  in  time  of   presidential 


LECTURES.  403 

election,  still  there  are  some,  who  are  still  higher-toned. 
They  tell  you  with  an  air  of  infinite  condescension  they 
never  vote,  have  not  indulged  in  that  youthful  indiscre- 
tion since  the  days  of  Jackson,  or  since  the  old  Whig 
party  died.  They  have  no  political  opinions,  such  are  in 
bad  taste — in  fact,  vulgar.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with 
parties,  which  are  beneath  their  dignity — too  corrupt  for 
their  saintly  perfection.  Torch-light  processions  are  sin- 
ful in  their  eyes,  newspapers  incarnate  slang,  public  dis- 
cussions bores,  the  Fourth  of  July  an  abomination,  the 
election  a  farce,  and  popular  government  a  humbug. 

I  like  a  high-toned  man.  Dignity,  deportment,  are 
grand  things — useful  too  in  their  way — they  serve  to 
make  one  who  comes  in  contact  with  them  feel  so  insig- 
nificant, so  infinitesimal — as  though  he  ought  to  apologize 
for  being  alive — and  humility  is  a  good  thing.  But  I 
submit  that  this  character  is  pitched  just  one  octave  too 
high  for  practical  good.  He  ought  to  be  exalted  to  some 
serene  height  of  pure  emptiness  where  he  could  indulge 
the  endless  vanity  of  self-contemplation  undisturbed, 
where  even  the  flatteries  of  sycophants  should  fall  upon 
his  ear  softened  to  a  lullaby  and  peacefully  blend  with 
his  dreams  of  his  own  infinite  perfection. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  the  majesty  of  this  man,  val- 
uable as  it  might  be  at  a  full-dress  dinner  party,  or  evening 
service,  would  not  so  overawe  a  New  York  or  California 
lobby  that  they  would  forget  or  forego  their  schemes. 
As  a  citizen,  a  member  of  the  commonwealth,  he  is  worth 
less  than  the  humblest  elector  who  expresses  an  honest 
conviction  by  his  vote — infinitely  less,  he  scarce  deserves 
the  name  of  manhood  when  compared  to  the  poorest, 
most  illiterate  soldier  who  was  ever  ready  to  shed  his 
blood  for  the  sublime  ideal  of  country.  Are  we  only  to 
catch  glimpses  of  that  ideal  in  the  flashes  of  the  battle- 
storm  ?  Is  the  roar  of  cannon  necessary  to  awaken  our 
patriotism  ?      Do  we   require  "  the  volcanic  energies  of 


404  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

revolution  to  send  capacity  to  the  front  ?  "  Shall  open 
foes  be  met  with  lives,  countered  with  hearts,  and  insid- 
ious dangers  baser  and  not  less  fatal  steal  in  through 
supineness  and  neglect  ?  Is  the  government  which  has 
cost  so  many  lives  worth  no  more  than  to  be  given  over 
to  the  control  of  whiskey-rings,  and  railroad-rings,  and 
gold-rings — bank-rings,  land-rings,  Indian-rings,  and  rings 
within  rings,  until  political  economy  becomes  merely  a 
study  of  concentrics,  the  science  of  government  a  kind  of 
spherical  trigonometry  ? 

Let  us  recognize  the  truth :  these  things  will  not  be  if 
there  is  active  virtue  in  the  people  to  prevent.  Public 
corruption  is — not  the  evidence  of  it  is — private  decay. 
It  is  not  the  hands  or  dial  that  are  wrong,  the  main-spring 
is  relaxed.  Mere  criticism,  cynical  barking,  and  fault- 
finding that  stop  at  that  are  worth  nothing.  Opinions 
held  as  abstractions,  kept  for  show  are  worth  nothing. 
An  opinion  like  a  bayonet  is  useless  without  a  man 
behind  it — like  a  man  it  must  be  vitalized  by  a  heart- 
throb every  instant.  Public  opinion — what  is  that  but 
the  bold  utterance  of  the  few  who  think  what  they  say, 
dare  to  say  what  they  think,  and  seek  what  they  want, 
and  the  silent  acquiescence  of  the  many  who  are  too  in- 
dolent for  thought  or  too  timid  for  action. 

Active  principles  govern  everywhere  and  money  is 
always  active — sleepless — ever  seeking  its  own,  and  more 
too.  It  knows  by  a  kind  of  instinct  where  and  how  to 
seek.  It  is  a  continual  pressure  that  always  finds  the 
weak  place.  If  patriotism  and  integrity  will  not  control 
the  government,  money  will,  in  its  own  interest.  Gold 
will  be  king,  ignorance  its  dupe,  and  vice  its  ministers. 

We  are  too  apt  to  think  that  the  government  at  Wash- 
ington is  charged  with  and  responsible  for  the  destiny  of 
the  nation  :  forgetting  the  while  it  is  the  people  who  shape 
the  government,  not  the  government  the  people.  The 
general  government  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  popular 


LECTURES.  405 

scheme.  Local,  Municipal,  County,  State,  ordinances, 
laws,  and  administrations  touch  us  more  nearly  than 
presidential  policies  and  Acts  of  Congress.  They  are 
not  more  important  in  the  large  sense  as  to  the  nation's 
influence  on  universal  humanity,  but  they  more  intimately 
concern  our  daily  life  and  business.  Extravagant  State 
or  Municipal  legislation  is  felt  in  the  taxes  of  next  year ; 
neglect  of  sanitary  regulations,  in  the  presence  of  the 
pestilence ;  a  well-  or  ill-organized  police,  in  immediate 
personal  security  ;  while  an  ignorant  or  corrupt  Judge  may 
relax  the  restraints  and  impair  the  respect  of  law.  It  is 
all  one  system  from  president  to  constable,  from  school- 
board  to  Congress,  the  sovereign  will  of  the  people  work- 
ing through  different  parts  of  the  same  machinery,  and  a 
failure  in  any  particular  is  an  imperfection  in  the  whole. 
In  point  of  fact  local  self-government  preceded,  nurtured, 
and  accomplished  natural  independence  and  established 
the  general  government.  Our  Yankee  forefathers — as 
Emerson  puts  it — discovered  that  the  pomp  and  shows  of 
royalty,  with  horse-guards  and  foot-guards,  masters  of  the 
rolls,  masters  of  the  hounds,  masters  of  the  bed-chamber, 
masters  of  the  gold-stick  were  unnecessary.  Selectmen 
and  town-meetings  would  answer  the  same  purpose  and 
were  cheaper.  We  have  gotten  rid  of  a  good  many 
shams — the  wigs  and  gowns  that  never  made  Mansfields 
and  Marshalls  of  berigged  and  begowned  nobodies — of 
the  spangles,  ceremonies,  and  stage-effects  of  royalty  and 
court-life,  dear  to  royal  fools  and  court-flies,  which  could 
not  make  an  Alfred  or  William  of  Orange  little,  nor  the 
Jameses  or  Georges  great,  let  us  now  rid  ourselves  of  the 
idea  that  government  can  do  anything  for  us  we  will  not 
do  for  ourselves.  Buckle  says  that  the  most  beneficent 
acts  of  legislative  bodies  have  always  been,  not  the  pas- 
sage of  new  laws  positively  good,  but  the  repeal  of 
old  ones  positively  bad.  Government  is  only  one 
of   the  agencies   of   progress,  and  in   this   age   not   the 


406  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

greatest.  When  Professor  Morse  applied  to  Congress  for 
aid  to  perfect  his  invention  he  was  made  the  butt  of  con- 
gressional wit  and  raillery :  it  was  proposed  to  include 
in  the  appropriation  asked  a  sum  to  build  a  telegraph  to 
the  moon — but  how  many  Acts  of  Congress  would  it  take 
to  equal  in  results  the  invention  of  the  magnetic  tele- 
graph ?  Stephenson  was  for  months  with  his  railway  plans 
before  Committees  of  Parliament — bothered,  pestered, 
and  delayed  by  wise  and  dignified  members  who  thought 
that  in  an  encounter  between  a  cow  and  a  locomotive  the 
locomotive  would  get  the  worst  of  it — threatened  with  the 
mad-house  for  predicting  that  railroad  trains  would  attain 
a  speed  of  twelve  miles  an  hour — but  Stephenson's  rail- 
way has  been  of  more  value  to  mankind  than  all  the  acts 
of  the  British  Parliament  for  two  hundred  years. 

It  is  the  theory  of  the  British  constitution  that  Parlia- 
ment can  do  anything.  One  of  the  old  law-writers 
doubted  whether  it  could  make  a  man  or  woman,  and 
fixes  that  as  the  limitation  of  its  power.  A  good  many 
people  seem  to  entertain  a  similar  idea  of  the  omnipotence 
of  legislation  in  this  country.  They  hold  the  government 
responsible  for  the  morals  of  the  community,  and  an 
administration  for  the  result  of  a  bad  season  or  a  short 
crop  ;  they  think  a  national  debt  can  be  wiped  out  by  some 
kind  of  legal  legerdemain  without  the  trouble  of  payment 
or  disgrace  of  repudiation  ?  and  are  almost  prepared  to 
believe  that  the  millennium  could  be  inaugurated  by 
legislative  enactment,  if  we  could  only  find  a  legislator 
wise  enough  to  bring  forward  the  proper  measure.  When 
we  do  find  the  man  and  the  measure  both  will  be  unnec- 
essary, the  millennium  will  already  be  here. 

Our  nation  is  cast  for  a  great  part  in  the  drama  of 
history,  but  whether  it  shall  be  played  well  or  ill  the 
result  only  will  determine.  We  cannot  avoid  the  re- 
sponsibility of  our  position  or  the  verdict  of  history.  We 
are  already  one  of  "  the  great  powers/'  and,  we  claim,  are 


LECTURES.  407 

destined  to  be  the  greatest.  We  seem  to  swell  in  individ- 
ual importance  when  we  speak  of  the  four  million  square 
miles  of  our  territory.  It  ministers  to  our  personal  vanity 
when  we  recall  the  rapidity  of  our  growth  and  reflect 
that  the  Continental  republic  has  oceans  for  boundaries, 
island  seas  for  lakes,  and  that  Niagara  is  singing  the 
hymn  of  its  destiny.  We  lift  up  our  voices  and  prophesy. 
We  estimate  the  growth  of  our  population  and  wealth 
for  a  hundred  years,  discount  the  result,  throw  it  into  the 
sum  of  our  present  glory,  and  go  off  in  a  general  blaze 
of  patriotism  and  pyrotechnics. 

But  it  is  not  material  wealth  that  makes  a  nation  great, 
but  wealth  of  soul — not  number  of  men,  but  quality  of 
manhood.  China  has  a  population  of  three  or  four  hun- 
dred million — so  large  that  a  mistake  of  a  hundred  million 
is  of  no  consequence — but  China  has  less  influence  on  the 
living  thought  of  the  world,  outside  the  Empire,  than  the 
London  Times  or  New  York  Tribune. 

In  the  first  administration  the  United  States  had  but 
four  million  people,  yet  I  suppose  it  is  no  disparagement 
to  our  present  executive  to  say  that  Andrew  Johnson  is 
not  a  greater  or  wiser  man  than  George  Washington. 
We  would  be  glad  to  borrow  from  that  age  an  Alexander 
Hamilton  for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  a  Thomas 
Jefferson  for  Secretary  of  State,  and  possibly  might  be 
willing  to  exchange  the  diplomacy  of  Reverdy  Johnson 
for  that  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 

It  is  not  more  men  so  much  as  more  manhood  that  we 
want.  The  three  hundred  who  stood  with  Leonidas  at 
Thermopylae  were  worth  three  hundred  thousand  of  the 
Persian  Host — worth  more  in  history  than  three  million 
times  three  hundred  thousand.  Who  cares  to  know 
whether  Athens  were  a  little  larger  or  smaller  than  San 
Francisco,  or  tries  to  ascertain  the  assessed  value  of  her 
property  when  he  recalls  the  roll  of  her  great  men  ?  Attica 
did  not  have  a  territory  as  large  as  Sacramento  County, 


408  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

yet  she  made  the  eloquence,  literature,  arts,  and  achieve- 
ments of  Greece  the  glory  of  all  time — has  made  the  ages 
forget  her  narrow  boundaries  in  geography  in  contem- 
plating the  vast  space  she  fills  in  history. 

Mere  increase  in  wealth  and  population  is  not  a  positive 
good.  Ignorance  and  corruption  may  increase  in  even 
greater  ratio.  Carlyle  in  his  cynical  way  said  of  his 
countrymen :  "  Great  Britain  has  a  population  of  thirty 
million — mostly  fools."  A  New  Hampshire  farmer  said 
that  the  greatest  difference  he  saw  between  stages  and 
railroads  was,  that  more  mean  men  rode  by  rail  than 
used  to  by  stage.  As  our  great  Western  train  sweeps 
forward  on  the  track  of  destiny  we  must  see  to  it  that 
the  passengers  improve  as  well  as  increase. 

We  rely  greatly,  perhaps  too  much,  on  our  system  of 
schools  and  general  education  to  leaven  the  coming 
generations  with  intelligence  and  virtue.  We  are  justly 
proud  of  our  schools.  But  everyone  must  have  noticed 
a  tendency  more  or  less  active  in  American  training  to 
educate  the  pupil  into  a  genteel  uselessness,  an  incapacity 
and  contempt  for  productive  labor,  a  morbid  desire  to  be 
suddenly  rich  or  great  without  effort,  and  a  vague  ex- 
pectation of  some  time  being  made  president  of  the 
United  States — so  as  almost  to  give  color  to  the  sardonic 
satire  of  a  modern  Diogenes,  that  when  a  boy  was  well 
educated  the  best  thing  to  be  done  with  him  was  to  drown 
him  and  save  his  board. 

The  conditions  of  life  are  rapidly  changing  throughout 
the  civilized  world,  and  more  rapidly  here  than  elsewhere. 
American  life  has  given  to  history  two  new  characters — 
the  desperado  of  the  frontier,  and  the  city  rough  of  the 
blood-tub,  plug-ugly  class.  The  bowie-knife  and  the  art 
of  ballot-box  stuffing  are  both  American  inventions — 
unpatented.  The  desperado  never  was  dangerous  to 
society,  for  his  outlawry  was  acknowledged  and  his  war 
declared.     He  will  soon  disappear  from  our  history,  for 


LECTURES.  409 

our  frontiers  now  advancing  from  the  East  and  West  are 
about  to  meet  and  vanish  in  mid-continent.  While  the 
continent  is  rapidly  filling  up,  towns  and  cities  increase 
in  population  in  even  greater  ratio  than  the  country. 
Commerce,  manufactures,  and  the  arts  are  constantly 
drawing  manual  labor  from  agriculture.  Many  of  us  can 
remember  when  farming  was  simply  hard  work  by 
hand.  The  farmer's  tools  were  the  sickle,  the  scythe, 
the  flail,  the  shovel-plow,  and  the  like — his  guide  and 
vade  mecum  the  Dutch  almanac  filled  with  wise  weather 
predictions  and  equally  wise  maxims  that  enjoined  the 
sowing  of  seeds  in  the  new  moon,  the  planting  of  trees 
and  roots  in  the  old.  Now,  agricultural  implements  have 
made  farming  an  art,  almost  a  fine  art,  and  much  of  the 
labor  that  would  otherwise  be  required  on  the  farm 
is  transferred  to  the  shop.  Steam  plows  will  make 
farms  larger — and  cities  more  populous.  Improved 
methods  of  transportation  and  travel  have  made  every 
part  of  the  world  a  buyer  and  seller  with  every 
other  part,  and  commerce  is  vastly  increased.  The 
tendency  of  population  is  now  strongly  towards  com- 
mercial and  manufacturing  centres.  The  influences 
referred  to  only  strengthen  a  natural  tendency.  Men  are 
gregarious  from  instinct :  love  a  crowd  for  its  own  sake. 
Like  seeks  like,  and  there  is  no  character  so  eccentric,  no 
taste  so  odd,  no  opinion  so  peculiar  it  cannot  find  its 
fellow  in  a  large  city. 

Cities,  too,  make  their  own  attractions.  They  get  the 
earliest  and  latest  strawberries,  the  choicest  steaks — get 
the  news  damp  from  the  press — have  the  best  markets, 
the  best  schools  and  churches,  the  most  varied  amuse- 
ments, the  most  tempting  dissipations  ;  open  the  greatest 
avenues  to  fortune ;  give  talent  the  largest  rewards, 
fraud  the  best  opportunities,  vice  and  crime  their  favorite 
haunts,  securest  retreats,  and  most  congenial  associates. 
Once  monarchs   built  cities  for  political  capitals;   now 


41 0  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

commerce,  capital,  labor,  wealth,  religion,  folly,  pleasure, 
vice,  and  crime  build  them  ;  erect  their  houses  and  taber- 
nacles side  by  side  and  elbow  each  other  in  the  street, 
with  polite  unconsciousness  of  anything  beneath  the 
exterior. 

The  city  was  the  birthplace  of  civilization ;  it  is  now 
the  bane  and  danger.  It  was  the  nurture  of  free  institu- 
tions ;  it  is  now  the  hardest  strain  and  severest  trial  upon 
democratic  theory  of  government — the  place  where  it 
will  first  fail  if  fail  it  must. 

From  the  slums  of  cities  there  comes  up  a  fungus- 
growth  of  civilization,  a  five-point,  Barbary-coast,  Chinese- 
beating,  prize-fighting  population  that  looks  upon  society, 
the  law,  and  its  ministers,  as  natural  enemies.  In  cities 
over-refinement  ends  in  luxury  and  effeminacy.  In  cities 
ingenuity  contrives  artificial  vices  to  stimulate  the  appe- 
tite destroyed  by  dissipation.  In  cities  concentrated 
capital  becomes  kingly  power,  making  war  for  monopolies, 
seeking  new  fields  of  wealth  as  a  conqueror  invades 
kingdoms  regardless  of  the  rights  of  men,  and  esteeming 
government  as  a  name  to  impose  on  the  patriotism  of  the 
simple,  while  it  is  made  subservient  to  and  a  part  of 
schemes  of  private  advantage. 

If  we  regard  the  city  as  the  world  in  little,  and  can  see 
in  it  the  forces  of  human  nature  in  full  play,  we  may 
almost  be  surprised  not  that  governments,  and  politics  if 
you  please,  are  not  better,  but  that  they  are  not  worse :  for 
government,  political  life  in  all  its  forms,  is  the  exponent 
of  the  active  agencies  of  the  community,  not  the  reflec- 
tion of  passive  opinions.  It  represents  action  far  more 
than  it  fears  criticism.  One  positive  has  more  power 
than  all  negatives.  An  ounce  of  selfishness  boldly  thrown 
into  the  scale  of  public  affairs  weighs  more  than  a  ton  of 
good  intentions  severely  kept  at  home. 

For  these  growing  evils  there  is  but  one  remedy — not 
moral  sentiments,  but  moral  force.     We  want  a  public 


LECTURES.  41 1 

opinion  "  not  a  pipe  for  fortune's  finger  to  sound  what 
stops  she  pleases  on,"  but  a  weapon,  an  armory  of  weapons 
offensive  and  defensive,  an  enlightened  public  opinion 
which  it  shall  be  more  dangerous  to  offend  than  it  is  to 
offend  prejudice  or  interest,  clique  or  ring — a  public 
opinion  not  proscriptive,  but  tolerant  of  individual  con- 
victions and  personal  rights.  And  above  all  we  want 
personal  manliness  that  will  champion  its  own  convictions 
to  the  uttermost  ;  that  would  rather  be  right  with  the 
weak  party  than  wrong  with  the  strong ;  that  does  not 
fear  unpopularity  in  the  cause  of  truth  ;  that  realizes  that 
all  reforms  are  brought  forward  by  minorities — realizes 
that  expediency  is  for  honor,  policy  for  a  day,  laws 
change,  governments  are  modified — ideas  are  indestruc- 
tible. 

For  our  future,  these  things  are  fixed  :  We  have  got 
to  live  together  as  one  people,  speaking  one  language,  a 
great  population  inhabiting  one  territory,  under  one 
government  republican  in  form,  democratic  in  theory. 
This  outline  is  fixed  as  fate.  The  filling  up,  all  that 
will  make  our  history  a  glory  or  shame,  depends  not 
upon  president  or  cabinet,  Congress,  politicians,  governors, 
or  statesmen,  but  upon  the  American  people. 

There  is  in  every  people  a  capacity,  a  latent  moral 
power  and  heroism,  sufficient  if  active  to  create  a  nation 
that  would  pale  all  the  glories  of  the  past  and  make  our 
wildest  dreams  of  destiny  tame.  We  see  this  spirit 
flashing  out  upon  occasions,  sometimes  humble  occasions, 
transfusing  humanity  with  celestial  light.  On  the  fourth 
of  last  July  at  the  Oakland  landing,  Italians  perilled  their 
lives  to  save  men,  women,  and  children  from  drowning. 
On  the  fifth  we  would  have  passed  Carlo  Sonoquini  with- 
out a  thought — there  were  none  so  poor  to  do  him  rever- 
ence :  on  the  sixth  we  stood  uncovered  while  the  hearse 
bearing  his  poor  body — bearing  the  dust  of  royalty — 
went  by. 


412  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

An  English  transport  foundered  at  sea.  When  all  hope 
was  gone  the  Colonel  mustered  his  men  under  arms. 
Calmly  as  on  parade  they  fell  into  line,  obeyed  every 
word  of  command,  and  went  down  with  a  "  present 
arms !  "  greeting  death  with  the  honors  due  to  the  great 
Conqueror.  When  the  ill-fated  Central  America  was 
lost  the  men  who  voluntarily  stood  upon  her  decks 
awaiting  their  doom,  the  strong  yielding  to  the  weak, 
while  the  women  and  children  went  off  in  the  boats,  were 
made  heroes  by  that  hour. 

When  our  country  confronted  danger  and  dissolution 
the  American  people  became  the  hero  of  the  War — 
peerless  in  history  ! 

If  the  popular  heart  would  always  beat  with  its  noblest 
pulsations  ;  if  we,  "  the  people,"  would  always  look  aloft 
where  the  stars  are  shining,  not  beneath  where  the  earth- 
worms crawl ;  if  the  ideal  of  country  should  ensphere  us 
all  in  the  very  atmosphere  of  unselfish  patriotism  until 
we  should  realize  "  he  is  a  freeman  whom  the  truth  makes 
free,  and  all  are  slaves  besides,"  our  nation  would  move 
through  the  century  with  the  momentum  of  forty  millions 
in  one — through  the  future  with  the  resistless  power  of 
destiny.  The  spirit  of  liberty  would  go  forth  from  us 
in  majesty  and  might — ride  upon  the  winds  and  move 
upon  the  waters  until  all  nations  would  join  in  the 
jubilee  of  freedom. 

LECTURE  ON  CHARLES  JAMES  FOX. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  lecture  I  have  considered 
Charles  James  Fox  as  the  central  figure  of  his  contempo- 
aries.  In  the  narrative  portions  I  may  sometimes  have 
inadvertently  fallen  into  the  language  of  others,  but 
never  intentionally  except  where  a  literal  quotation  was 
necessary  to  historical  accuracy. 

The  reign  of  George  the  Third  is  famous  in  general 


LECTURES.  413 

history  as  the  era  of  the  American  and  French  revolu- 
tions and  the  Napoleonic  wars  which  grew  out  of  the 
latter.  It  is  distinguished  in  English  annals  as  a  period 
of  Parliamentary  oratory.  It  was  made  illustrious  by 
Chatham,  Burke,  Mansfield,  Fox,  Sheridan,  Pitt,  Erskine, 
and  adorned  by  others  who  would  have  been  esteemed 
great  if  there  had  not  been  giants  in  those  days. 

It  would  be  difficult  now  to  find,  either  in  the  Ameri- 
can Congress  or  English  Parliament,  a  man  who  is  dis- 
tinctively great  as  an  orator.  There  are  accomplished 
debators,  brilliant  speakers,  able  party  leaders — but  where 
is  the  orator? — the  man  whose  very  presence  is  magnetic, 
whose  soul  is  so  refulgent  with  his  theme  that  it  glows 
in  his  eyes,  beams  in  his  face,  transfigures  his  person,  blends 
voice,  action,  manner,  language,  thought  into  a  supreme 
harmony,  fuses  reason,  passion,  imagination  into  one 
power — that  ethereal  fire  which  makes  speech  electric  ? 

A  friend  once  told  me  that  to  hear  Henry  Clay  in  the 
excitement  of  debate  was  like  listening  to  an  inspired 
voice  of  orchestral  power,  from  a  presence  of  fire;  that 
there  was  a  whole  oration  in  his  "  Mr.  President,"  and  that 
he  would  have  walked  miles  to  hear  him  pronounce  the 
word  "  Louisiana." 

In  the  British  Parliament  discussions  now  are  for  the 
most  part  conducted  in  the  colloquial  tone.  Gladstone 
is  often  vehement,  John  Bright  has,  or  rather  had,  the 
pomp  of  declamation,  but  the  speakers  in  Parliament 
seldom  rise  above  the  tone  and  manner  of  animated 
conversation.  The  sharply  cut  epigrams  and  stinging 
retorts  of  Disraeli,  as  they  fell  from  his  lips,  would 
scarcely  be  intelligible  to  an  American  hearer  unaccus- 
tomed to  his  voice  and  pronunciation.  The  canons  of 
good  taste  have  become  severe  and  repressive.  The  exhi- 
bition of  feeling  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  Anything  like 
the  theatrical  display  is  fatal.  No  one  now  would  dare 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  like  Brougham,  to  drop  one 


414  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

knee  at  the  close  of  a  speech,  and  supplicate  the  House 
not  to  reject  a  Bill ;  or,  like  Burke,  to  throw  a  dagger  upon 
the  floor  in  the  midst  of  a  speech  to  emphasize  a  sen- 
tence, or  like  Chatham  "  make  his  crutch  a  weapon  of 
oratory." 

There  are  good  reasons  doubtless  for  this  change  of 
taste,  and  decline  of  Parliamentary  oratory.  One  is  that 
the  immensely  increased  pressure  of  public  business  de- 
mands from  public  men  a  constant  and  laborious  atten- 
tion to  details,  and  makes  despatch  more  valuable  than 
speech — the  committee-man  more  useful  than  the  orator. 
For  example  :  about  5000  Bills  were  introduced  at  the  last 
session  of  Congress.  Another  reason  is  that  public 
opinion  was  formed  by  the  debates  of  Parliament  and 
Congress :  now,  legislative  action  is  governed  by  public 
opinion,  and  the  journalist  has  acquired  the  influence  and 
importance  which  the  orator  has  lost. 

The  political  orator  has  no  place  in  the  early  history  of 
England,  so  long  as  great  public  questions  were  decided 
in  the  field  rather  than  in  the  forum,  by  the  collision  of 
arms  rather  than  of  debate.  Freedom  of  speech  is 
essential  to  greatness  of  speech.  There  could  be  little 
true  oratory  in  Parliament  beneath  the  overshadowing 
power  of  the  Throne — when  the  displeasure  of  the 
King  was  equivalent  to  a  bill  of  attainder,  when 
the  very  summary  method  was  in  vogue  of  moving 
that  previous  question  which  shuts  off  all  debate  by 
sending  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  to  the  Tower,  and 
when  a  troublesome  man's  mouth  could  be  effectually 
stopped  by  cutting  off  his  head. 

In  the  revolution  which  brought  Charles  the  First  to  the 
block  and  Cromwell  to  power,  there  was  eloquence,  but 
scarcely  oratory.  Hampden,  Pym,  Eliot,  Digby,  and 
the  Parliamentary  leaders  spoke  as  though  their  words 
were  weighed,  minted,  and  stamped  with  exact  value  to 
be  current  for  all  time.     Occasionally  a  great  sentence 


LECTURES.  415 

would  break  its  way  through  all  restraints  and  sweep  the 
field  of  debate  like  the  discharge  of  a  park  of  artillery, 
but  usually  they  seemed  to  apply  the  methods  of  mathe- 
matical reasoning  to  questions  of  morals  and  politics — of 
life  and  death.  Strafford  in  his  own  defence  was  eloquent, 
but  he  spoke  with  the  freedom  of  despair  and  as  a  man 
standing  in  the  shadow  of  death. 

Confessedly  the  Englishman  who  first,  and  in  the  high- 
est degree,  united  the  natural  elements  of  a  Parliamentary 
orator,  was  the  elder  Pitt,  afterwards  Lord  Chatham,  who 
entered  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  reign  of  George 
the  Second,  but  whose  public  service  reached  far  into  the 
reign  of  George  the  Third.  He  was  not  so  profoundly 
versed  as  many  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  principles  of 
government,  technically  not  so  good  a  debater,  but  he 
was  born  to  command.  Dignified  in  person,  impassioned 
but  easy  and  graceful  in  manner ;  with  a  face  and  eye  of 
wonderful  power  of  expression,  a  voice  which  had  at 
times  the  softness  of  the  flute,  the  swell  of  the  organ,  and 
the  dissonance  of  the  trumpet ;  master  of  satire,  of  ridicule, 
and  invective;  at  once  fluent  and  accurate,  daring  and 
imperious  ;  not  logical  in  his  methods  he  could  convince 
the  reason  through  the  feelings  and  incite  the  feelings 
through  the  reason,  flash  conviction  by  a  sentence,  kindle 
enthusiasm  by  a  tone,  overawe  with  a  look,  and  silence 
by  a  wave  of  the  hand. 

Much  of  the  oratorical  effect  he  produced  was  due  to 
his  character  and  position.  He  spoke  with  authority. 
He  was  the  voice  of  England.  Some  of  the  anecdotes 
told  of  the  triumphs  of  his  manner,  in  the  absence  of  the 
living  presence  of  the  man  himself  seem  incredible  and 
even  absurd.  It  is  related  that  upon  one  occasion  he 
began  a  speech  upon  some  question  of  commercial  inter- 
course with  the  words  "  Sugar,  Mr.  Speaker."  There 
was  something  ludicrous  in  the  tone,  words,  and  his 
momentary  pause,  and  an  audible  titter  ran  around  the 


41 6  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

benches.  The  orator  was  amazed.  He  laughed  at ! 
The  Jupiter  Tonans  of  the  House  ridiculed  !  Towering 
to  his  full  height,  his  eyes  blazing  with  wrath,  he  swept 
the  circuit  of  the  benches  with  his  extended  arm  and 
long  forefinger,  and  pronounced  the  word  Sugar  three 
times  "  in  a  loud  voice,  rising  in  its  notes  and  swelling 
into  tones  of  vehement  anger,  until  the  hall  rang  and 
reverberated  with  the  sound."  The  members  were  awe- 
struck as  though  they  had  heard  the  trump  of  doom. 
After  a  scornful  pause  he  exclaimed,  "  Which  of  you 
dare  laugh  at  Sugar  now  !  "  and  went  on  with  his  speech. 
It  is  possible  that  a  clever  actor  witnessing  this  scene 
might  have  learned  to  imitate  and  reproduce  the  tone  and 
manner  of  Pitt,  but  the  effect  would  have  been  no  more 
alike  than  the  burning  rosin  and  sheet-iron  thunder  of  the 
stage  are  like  "  Jove's  oak-cleaving  thunderbolt."  For 
Pitt  was  privileged  to  dare  everything.  Macaulay  says  : 
"  He  was  the  greatest  man  in  England  and  had  made 
England  the  greatest  country  in  the  world.  His  name 
was  spoken  with  awe  in  every  palace  from  Lisbon  to 
Petersburg,  and  his  trophies  were  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe." 

After  George  the  Third  came  to  the  throne,  the  Par- 
liamentary rival  and  leading  political  opponent  of  the 
elder  Pitt  was  Henry  Fox,  afterwards  Lord  Holland,  and 
the  father  of  Charles  James  Fox,  the  life-long  rival  and 
political  opponent  of  Pitt's  son.  Without  claim  to  elo- 
quence, he  was  regarded  as  even  a  more  powerful  debater 
than  Pitt.  Pitt  called  him  "  a  boisterous  and  impetuous 
torrent."  He  had  in  an  eminent  degree  Danton's  three 
requisites,  alike  essential  to  success  in  revolution  and 
debate — "  audacity — audacity — audacity."  Unscrupu- 
lous in  the  use  of  means,  Macaulay  says  he  was  the  most 
unpopular  statesman  of  his  time,  not  because  he  sinned 
more  than  many  of  them,  but  because  he  canted  less. 
From  his  office  of  paymaster  of  the  forces,  the  most  lu- 


LECTURES.  417 

crative  in  the  Government,  he  amassed  an  immense  for- 
tune, and  was  rewarded  with  the  peerage  for  his  services 
in  buying  up  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  in 
support  of  Bute  and  opposition  to  Pitt.  No  such  shame- 
less corruption  has  been  known  in  English  politics — or 
any  other.  It  made  the  practice  of  Walpole  respectable. 
Without  attempt  at  concealment,  members  were  paid 
for  their  votes  from  the  secret-service  fund,  the  prices 
varying  with  the  exigencies  of  the  Government,  almost  as 
openly  as  stocks  are  sold  on  California  streets.  Appoint- 
ments to  office  were  made,  not  on  account  of  fitness  but 
of  political  influence.  All  over  the  country,  men  who  had 
grown  gray  in  the  civil  service  and  knew  no  other  pur- 
suits, often  men  who  had  been  disabled  in  their  country's 
battles,  were  pitilessly  removed  and  reduced  to  want,  to 
make  room  for  the  favorites  and  dependants  of  members 
of  Parliament.  (This  was  in  England  more  than  one 
hundred  years  ago  !  ) 

The  eldest  son  of  Lord  Holland,  on  account  of  a 
physical  infirmity,  was  incapacitated  for  a  successful  public 
career,  and  the  hopes  of  the  father  were  fixed  upon  the 
third,  Charles  James  Fox,  as  the  successor  of  his  political 
power  and  leadership.  Charles  was  descended  by  his 
mother  from  the  beautiful  French  adventuress,  the 
Duchess  of  Richmond,  who  was  sent  to  the  English 
coast  by  Louis  the  Fourteenth  to  fascinate  the  "  Merrie 
Monarch  "  and  control  his  policy  in  the  French  interest, 
and  who  suceeded  in  both.  He  was  born  in  1746,  nine- 
teen years  after  Burke,  two  years  before  Sheridan,  and 
ten  years  before  the  younger  Pitt.  He  was  trained 
for  public  life  from  his  birth.  His  childhood  was 
remarkably  precocious,  and  he  was  constantly  brought  in 
contact  with  the  leading  public  men  of  that  day.  The 
paternal  discipline  of  his  father  can  scarcely  be  com- 
mended to  general  imitation.  It  was  his  rule  not  to 
thwart  his  son's  wishes  in  anything,  for  fear  of  breaking 


41 8  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

his  spirit.  When  not  more  than  four  years  old  Charles 
one  day  exclaimed  that  he  wanted  to  break  a  gold  watch 
which  his  father  was  winding  up  in  his  presence.  His 
father  remonstrated  that  it  would  be  very  foolish.  "  I 
must  break  it,  I  must !  "  was  the  reply.  "  Then  break  it, 
my  son,"  said  the  father,  handing  it  to  him,  and  it  was 
dashed  on  the  floor,  breaking  to  his  heart's  content. 
Upon  another  occasion,  Charles  had  been  promised  that 
he  should  see  a  stone-wall  blown  up  which  it  had  be- 
come necessary  to  remove  in  repairing  the  grounds  of  the 
estate.  By  some  mistake  of  the  workmen  the  mine  was 
exploded  in  his  child's  absence.  The  father  was  duly 
taken  to  task  at  his  next  meeting  with  his  son. 

"  Father,  you  promised  I  should  see  that  wall  blown 
up." 

"  Yes,  my  child,  and  I  am  very  sorry  my  orders  were 
not  obeyed." 

"  Father  you  promised  I  should  see  it." 

"  I  did,  and  you  shall  see  it  " — and  he  had  the  wall  re- 
built and  again  blown  up  in  the  child's  presence. 

In  after-life  Fox  used  to  relate  that  when  he  was  about 
five  years  old  he  overheard  his  mother  say  to  his  father — 
"  I  do  not  know  what  will  become  of  Charles,  he  is  so 
passionate."  His  father  replied  :  "  He  is  a  sensible  little 
fellow,  and  will  learn  to  control  his  passions." 

The  incident  made  an  impression  upon  him  which  he 
never  forgot :  and  after  all  the  vices,  follies,  and  dissipa- 
tions of  his  youth  and  earlier  manhood,  he  was  described 
by  Burke,  who  never  had  a  vice,  a  folly,  or  a  dissipation, 
"  as  a  man  made  to  be  loved  "  ;  and  amid  the  acerbities, 
contentions,  and  animosities  of  public  life,  then  seven 
times  heated,  in  his  personal  and  social  relations  his  tem- 
per was  sweet  as  summer,  his  disposition  open  as  the  day. 
To  the  day  of  his  death  his  friends  usually  spoke  of  him 
as  "  Charles  " — but  who  ever  spoke  of  Burke  as  Edmund, 
of  Pitt  as  William,  or  even  of  Sheridan  as  Richard  ? 


LECTURES.  419 

At  school  and  the  university  he  was  alike  distinguished 
for  his  application  to  study  and  for  his  habits  of  dissipa- 
tion. His  Oxford  tutor  said  that  Charles  Fox  was  the 
only  pupil  he  ever  had  whose  application  he  felt  it  a  duty 
to  discourage.  He  left  the  university  at  eighteen,  pro- 
ficient in  the  studies  of  the  curriculum  of  that  period — 
finding  "  entertainment  "in  mathematics,  delight  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  with  a  love  for  literature  which  amounted  to 
a  passion  ;  and  a  passion  for  gambling  which  was  the  bane 
of  his  life.  His  father  had  taught  him  to  gamble  before  he 
was  fourteen,  as  a  part  of  a  worldly  education. 

After  leaving  the  university  he  spent  two  years  on  the 
Continent,  where  he  learned  to  speak  French  and  Italian 
fluently,  and  where  he  so  bettered  the  instruction  of  his 
father  as  to  lose  immense  sums  at  play.  He  is  reported 
to  have  said  that  "  next  to  winning,  losing  at  cards  was 
the  greatest  pleasure  in  life."  Cheerful  winners  are  pro- 
verbial at  gaming-tables,  but  so  cheerful  a  loser  is  an 
anomaly.  He  had  need  of  this  philosophy,  for  he  habit- 
ually lost.  Before  his  death  Lord  Holland  had  paid  in 
the  aggregate  more  than  a  million  of  dollars  of  the  value 
of  our  money  for  his  son's  losses  at  play.  It  was  well 
for  the  father  that  he  struck  the  bonanza  in  the  office  of 
"  paymaster  of.  the  forces  "  ! 

During  this  tour  also  Charles  was  seized  with  the  am- 
bition of  being  the  best-dressed  man  in  Europe.  His 
red  heels  and  Paris  cut  velvet  were  displayed  in  every 
court  on  the  Continent,  and  he  was  very  near  becoming 
the  most  noted  coxcomb  of  his  day. 

Lord  Holland,  becoming  alarmed  at  the  result  of  his 
own  instructions,  recalled  his  son  from  Europe  in  his 
twentieth  year,  and  had  him  returned  to  Parliament  a 
year  before  he  was  eligible,  in  the  hope  that  his  ambition 
would  conquer  his  absorbing  passion  for  play. 

At  this  time  English  high  life  was  almost  as  profligate  as 
in  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second,  and  young  Fox  natu- 


420  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

rally  fell  in  with  the  wits  and  beaux  of  society,  and  that 
large  class  of  public  men  who  frequented  Brooke's,  Al- 
mack's,  the  Goosetree,  and  other  fashionable  gambling 
clubs.  Horace  Walpole  in  his  graceful  style  describes 
an  evening  at  Almack's — the  players — the  fashionable 
men  of  the  town,  sat  around  gaming-tables,  their  coats 
turned  wrongside  out  "  for  luck,"  or  wearing  great  frieze 
coats,  the  ruffles  of  their  shirt  wrist-bands  turned  back 
and  covered  with  leather  cases  like  those  worn  by  foot- 
men in  scouring  knives  ;  with  steeple-crowned  straw  hats 
sometimes  fantastically  garlanded  with  flowers,  the  brim 
drawn  down  over  the  face  to  conceal  its  expression  ;  the 
stakes  rouleaux  of  gold  sometimes  amounting  to  $50,000 
on  a  single  game. 

These  men  would  bet  upon  anything  and  everything. 
Upon  one  occasion  a  man  fell  in  a  fit  in  the  street  before 
the  door  of  the  Club.  Bets  were  immediately  laid  as  to 
whether  he  would  die  or  recover.  He  was  brought  in, 
and  the  men  who  had  bet  on  his  death  objected  to  call- 
ing a  surgeon,  as  it  would  interfere  with  the  fairness  of 
the  wager.  "  A  writer  in  Blackwood  relates  that  Lord 
Barrymore,  commonly  called '  Cripplegate,  backed  himself 
to  eat  a  live  cat,  and  challenged  the  Duke  of  York  (the 
King's  son)  to  try  which  of  the  two  could  wade  farthest 
into  the  sea,  and   won  by  a  few  yards." 

In  1772  "Gibbon,  the  historian,  describes  Fox  as 
preparing  for  a  solemn  discussion  in  the  House  (on  the 
marriage  bill)  by  spending  twenty-two  hours  at  hazard, 
his  devotions  costing  him  about  £500  an  hour,  in  all 
£1 1,000"  ($55,ooo).  One  morning,  after  a  night  when 
Fox's  losses  had  been  ruinous,  one  of  his  friends  went 
to  his  rooms  expecting  to  find  him  in  the  depths  of  de- 
spondency, and  fearing  he  would  be  tempted  to  suicide. 
He  found  him  lying  on  a  lounge,  reading  Herodotus  in 
Greek.  To  an  expression  of  surprise,  he  replied  :  "  Why, 
what  would  you  have  me  do  ?  I  have  not  a  shilling  in 
the  world."     He  is  reported  to  have  said  upon  another 


LECTURES.  421 

occasion  "  that  a  man  could  not  afford  to  lose  both  his 
money  and  his  temper." 

After  he  had  squandered  the  gifts  of  his  father,  and 
the  patrimony  he  received  from  the  estate  of  his  mother, 
when  he  was  about  forty  years  old,  his  friends  by  a  sub- 
scription settled  a  life  annuity  upon  him,  sufficient  for 
the  reasonable  wants  of  a  man  in  his  position.  Some- 
one, thinking  of  the  delicacy  which  would  be  required, 
wondered  "  how  Fox  would  take  it."  "  Take  it,"  replied 
the  witty  George  Selwyn,  "  why,  quarterly,  to  be  sure  ! " 
After  this  settlement  he  renounced  play,  and  it  can  be 
said  of  him  as  it  has  been  of  Henry  Clay,  that  he  outgrew 
the  follies  of  his  youth,  and  the  longer  he  lived  the  better 
he  became. 

To  the  surprise  of  some  of  his  friends  Fox  described 
himself  as  a  painstaking  man,  and  Lord  Russell  confirms 
the  description  by  stating  that  after  he  became  Secretary 
of  State  he  took  lessons  of  a  writing-master  and  followed 
copy  like  a  school-boy  to  improve  his  penmanship ;  and 
that  while  in  office  he  personally  attended  to  minute 
details  which  are  usually  left  to  clerks ;  while  his  method 
of  despatching  official  business,  and  his  frank,  open, 
accessible  manners  were  the  delight  of  all  with  whom  he 
was  brought  in  contact. 

His  physical  constitution  must  have  been  one  of  the  best 
ever  given  to  man,  for  during  all  the  period  of  his  gam- 
bling, with  its  attendant  dissipations,  he  was  assiduous  in 
his  attendance  at  Parliament.  He  said  that  he  made 
himself  a  speaker  at  the  expense  of  the  House  ;  that  for 
eight  successive  sessions  he  spoke  every  evening  except 
one,  and  only  regretted  he  did  not  speak  on  that.  Burke, 
in  many  respects  the  most  eloquent  man  who  ever  spoke 
English,  said :  "  Fox  made  himself  by  slow  degrees  the 
most  brilliant  and  accomplished  debater  the  world  has  ever 
known."  Sir  James  Mcintosh,  a  calm  and  philosophic 
observer,  said  :  •'  Fox  certainly  possessed  above  all  mod- 
erns  that   union    of   reason,   simplicity,  and   vehemence 


422  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

which  formed  the  prince  of  orators.  He  was  the  most 
Demosthenean  speaker  since  Demosthenes." 

When  Fox  was  but  twenty-four,  in  1773,  "  on  the 
ninth  of  April  Horace  Walpole  heard  him  speak  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  heard  him  with  admiration. 
*  Fox's  abilities,'  he  writes  to  Horace  Mann, '  are  amazing 
at  so  very  early  an  age,  especially  under  the  circumstances 
of  such  a  dissolute  life.  He  had  just  arrived  from  New- 
market, had  sat  up  drinking  all  night,  and  had  not  been 
in  bed.  How  such  talents  laugh  at  Tully's  rules  for  an 
orator !  Cicero's  labored  orations  are  puerile  compared 
to  this  boy's  manly  reason." 

From  a  fop,  he  became  almost  a  sloven.  He  could 
often  be  seen  going  from  his  rooms  to  the  Club,  slip- 
shod, in  a  faded  morning-gown,  shirt  unbuttoned,  expos- 
ing a  broad  chest  which  suggested  the  hide  of  a  black 
bear.  In  the  House  of  Commons,  after  the  American 
War  at  least,  he  wore  the  colors  of  Washington  and  the 
Continentals,  buff  vest  and  blue  frock  coat — but  well- 
worn  and  soiled.  His  appearance  at  the  trial  of  Warren 
Hastings,  in  full  dress,  was  so  unusual  as  to  occasion 
remark.  He  once  however  visited  Paris  attired  as  became 
his  position,  during  the  reign  of  Napoleon,  and  he  was 
followed  by  the  street  crowds  on  acccount  of  his  kingly 
appearance,  as,  long  after,  Daniel  Webster  was  followed 
in  England. 

The  only  preparation  he  made  for  a  speech  was  to 
master  the  subject,  by  going  to  its  very  heart  and  marrow, 
making  it  his  for  all  time :  language,  illustration,  and 
arrangement  he  left  for  the  excitement  of  the  occasion. 
Sitting  in  the  House  of  Commons,  slovenly  dressed, 
square  and  heavily  built,  broad  shouldered,  inclined  to 
corpulence,  under  medium  height,  brown  complexion, 
large  black  eyes  with  shaggy  overhanging  eyebrows,  un- 
combed black  hair  falling  in  matted  locks  over  his  fore- 
head, he  might  have  been  taken  for  a  Yorkshire  farmer. 


LECTURES.  423 

But  on  his  feet,  in  the  excitement  of  debate,  his  eyes 
flashing,  face  illumined,  voice  sometimes  rising  to  a 
scream,  every  muscle  of  his  body  quivering  with  intense 
mental  activity,  he  was  the  incarnation  of  living  intel- 
lectual power. 

A  distinguished  German  who  heard  him  in  one  of  his 
great  contests  with  Pitt  described  him  in  Blackwood  as  : 
"  Rising  towards  the  end  of  a  long  debate,  and  bursting 
into  a  speech  as  unmethodical  as  it  was  impetuous,  he 
yet  recalled  without  a  single  omission  every  topic  of 
importance  which  had  been  touched  on  through  the 
night.  When  he  sat  down  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  been 
like  the  Pythoness,  filled  and  agitated  with  a  divine  fury. 
His  whole  body  was  dissolved  in  floods  of  perspiration, 
and  his  fingers  continued  for  some  minutes  to  vibrate  as 
if  he  were  recovering  from  a  convulsion." 

Fox's  early  political  training  was  as  unfortunate  as  his 
moral.  His  father,  from  being  a  personal  friend  of  Wal- 
pole,  and  an  earnest  Whig  under  George  the  Second, 
became  under  George  the  Third  the  highest  of  high 
Tories,  and  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  extreme  preroga- 
tives of  the  Crown. 

Only  the  briefest  reference  can  be  made  within  the 
limits  of  a  lecture  to  the  political  questions  of  the  long 
reign  of  George  the  Third.  They  were  among  the  most 
momentous  of  English  history,  but  underlying  them  all 
was  the  constant  struggle  between  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Crown  and  the  rights  of  a  free  Parliament. 

Upon  the  death  of  Queen  Anne  in  1714,  the  Elector 
of  Hanover  had  been  called  to  the  throne  as  George  the 
First.  He  was  then  fifty-four  years  old,  spoke  English 
very  imperfectly,  was  gross  in  his  tastes,  offensive  in  his 
manners,  had  imprisoned  his  wife,  had  quarrelled  with  his 
son,  after  the  custom  of  the  House  of  Brunswick,  dis- 
liked the  English  people,  and  was  disliked  by  them. 

He  would  sometimes  get  into  a  pet  with  his  ministers, 


424  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

and  threaten  to  go  back  to  Hanover  for  good  and  leave 
England  without  a  king.  He  died  after  a  reign  of 
thirteen  years,  while  making  a  journey  to  Hanover,  at 
Osnaburgh. 

Thackeray  relates  that  when  his  great  minister,  Wal- 
pole,  went  to  break  the  intelligence  of  the  King's  death 
to  his  son  and  heir  (then  forty-four  years  old)  he  found  him 
taking  an  afternoon  nap.  Dropping  on  one  knee  beside 
him,  he  aroused  him,  told  him  his  royal  father  was  dead, 
and  greeted  him  as  George  the  Second  by  the  Grace  of 
God,  King  of  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  and  France.  The 
new  King  hated  Walpole,  and  as  he  rubbed  his  eyes  his 
first  royal  utterance  was  "  Dat  ish  onebeeg  lie."  Almost 
his  first  royal  act  was  to  commit  a  felony  by  destroying 
his  father's  will,  to  cut  off  the  legatees ;  his  excuse  being 
that  his  father  had  committed  two  similar  felonies  and 
deprived  him  of  legacies  by  destroying  the  wills  of  his 
mother  and  grandmother.  He  resembled  his  father  in  his 
dislike  for  the  English,  his  love  of  Hanover,  and  if  possible 
excelled  him  in  his  hatred  to  his  son  Frederick,  the  heir- 
apparent — whom  he  drove  from  the  royal  palace. 

These  two  reigns  covered  a  period  of  forty-six  years,  dur- 
ing which  the  personal  influence  of  the  King  was  scarcely 
felt,  and  the  Crown  was  practically  "  held  in  commission 
by  the  great  Whig  families."  During  most  of  this 
time  the  Government  was  administered  by  the  two  great- 
est Ministers,  if  we  except  Cromwell,  who  was  his  own 
Minister,  England  has  ever  known — Robert  Walpole  and 
William  Pitt,  who  were  respectively  made  peers  as  Lord 
Oxford  and  the  Earl  of  Chatham.  The  constitutional 
government  through  a  Ministry  thus  became  silently  but 
firmly  established,  and  the  power  of  Parliament  increased 
as  that  of  the  King  declined. 

Frederick  died  before  his  father,  and  George  the  Second, 
was  succeeded  by  his  grandson  George  the  Third,who  came 
to  the  throne  in  1770,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two.    Poorly  ed- 


LECTURES.  425 

ucated,  he  had  that  cunning  which  often  distinguishes  nar- 
row minds,  and  that  obstinacy  of  purpose  which  belongs  to 
men  who  are  sincere  but  bigoted  in  opinion.  His  blame- 
less private  life,  his  domestic  virtues,  and  the  fact  that 
he  was  English  born,  commended  him  to  the  affections 
of  the  people,  and  gave  him  a  power  for  evil  which  a  more 
unpopular  monarch  would  never  have  possessed.  It  was 
his  misfortune  to  fall  under  the  influence  of  Lord  Bute, 
who  encouraged  him  in  the  congenial  sentiment  that  he 
was  born  in  the  purple,  a  King  in  his  own  right,  and 
should  govern  as  well  as  reign.  He  endeavored  to  control 
Parliament  through  court  influence,  and  sometimes  suc- 
ceeded in  defeating  the  measures  of  his  Ministers  by  the 
votes  of  an  odious  body  of  men  known  in  Parliament  as 
"  the  King's  friends." 

Thus  was  the  old  question  between  Charles  the  First 
and  his  Parliament  revived  after  more  than  a  century, 
modified  only  by  the  changed  conditions  of  society. 
Charles  the  First  desired  to  govern  without  a  Parliament, 
George  the  Third  through  Parliament. 

Fox  entered  Parliament  in  the  ninth  year  of  the  reign 
of  George  the  Third,  and  from  the  influence  of  his  father 
and  early  associations  he  was  the  supporter  and  advocate 
of  Kingly  prerogative.  His  first  speech  in  Parliament 
was  in  favor  of  depriving  Wilkes  of  the  seat  to  which  he 
had  been  fairly  elected.  Wilkes  was  a  man  of  brilliant 
parts,  without  moral  or  political  principle,  or  even  a 
decent  sense  of  propriety.  He  was  utterly  lacking  in 
sincerity  and  regarded  life  simply  as  a  game  of  hazard.  In 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  when  he  had  grown  conservative 
and  become  something  of  a  courtier,  the  King  one  day 
inquired  after  one  of  his  early  friends. 

"  He  was  no  friend  of  mine,"  replied  Wilkes.  "  He  was 
a  Wilkite — I  never  was  !  " 

His  face  was  so  ugly  that  it  could  not  be  caricatured. 
The  Nasts  of  that  time  gave  up  the  attempt  in  despair. 


426  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

They  could  not  alter  a  line  of  his  face  without  improving 
his  looks.  He  used  to  say  that  in  conversation  with 
ladies  other  men  had  twenty  minutes  the  start  of  him. 
It  took  him  that  long  to  talk  off  the  effect  of  his  face. 

This  man,  so  odious  in  personal  appearance  and  moral 
character,  became  a  popular  idol  because  he  represented 
two  rights  dear  to  Englishmen  and  their  descendants 
everywhere — the  right  of  free  speech  and  of  free  votes. 
He  had  accused  the  King  of  falsehood  and  had  been 
arrested  for  libel  at  the  Monarch's  personal  request. 
The  people  elected  him  to  Parliament.  The  House 
rejected  him.  He  was  re-elected  and  rejected,  and 
finally  forced  in  against  King,  Court,  Ministry,  King's 
friends  and  party,  by  an  indignant  public  opinion  which 
at  one  time  threatened  to  swell  into  a  revolution. 

Fox  made  his  Parliamentary  debut  in  support  of  a  mo- 
tion to  reject  Wilkes  and  give  his  seat  to  Colonel  Luttrell, 
his  competitor,  who  received  only  three  hundred  votes. 
His  maiden  effort  was  received  with  great  favor  by  his 
father  and  friends,  but  Fox  lived  to  regret  it. 

He  continued  to  act  with  the  Tories,  and  to  advocate 
the  measures  of  the  Ministers  and  principles  of  the  King 
for  about  three  years,  and  there  is  to  be  said  in  excuse 
for  this  portion  of  his  political  career,  that  in  his  detesta- 
tion of  the  overweening  influence  of  the  aristocracy  over 
the  Crown  as  exhibited  in  the  reigns  of  George  the  First 
and  Second,  he  lost  sight  of  the  danger  to  free  govern- 
ment from  the  controlling  influence  of  the  Crown  over 
Parliament. 

The  King  quite  naturally  distrusted  him  on  account  of 
his  dissolute  life,  and  disliked  him  on  account  of  his  in- 
tractability. He  was  too  fiery  a  spirit  to  work  well  in 
harness.  He  was  outspoken  when  policy  required  con- 
cealment, and  too  frank  in  his  nature  to  seek  the  tortuous 
paths  of  expediency.  He  was  often  refractory,  as  an 
ardent  soul  must  be  as  it  chafes  against  the  restraints  of 


LECTURES.  427 

inherited  opinion.  Finally  he  gave  unpardonable  of- 
fence by  carrying  a  measure  in  the  House  by  his  bold 
and  open  advocacy  against  the  wishes  of  his  chief.  He 
disclaimed  any  intention  of  going  over  to  the  opposition, 
but  a  few  days  afterwards  was  dismissed  from  the  office 
he  held  as  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  Treasury, 
with  this  brief  note  from  Lord  North,  the  Prime  Minister  : 
"  His  Majesty  has  thought  proper  to  order  a  new  Com- 
mission of  Treasury  to  be  made  out  in  which  I  do  not 
see  your  name." 

If  his  Majesty  had  realized  what  a  servant  he  was  to 
lose,  what  an  antagonist  he  was  to  gain,  the  note  at  least 
might  have  been  less  curt.  Not  many  years  afterward, 
Dr.  Johnson,  who  was  almost  servile  in  his  adulation  of 
the  King  and  his  devotion  to  Kingly  prerogative,  said — 
"  Fox  is  an  extraordinary  man.  Here  is  a  man  who  has 
divided  a  Kingdom  with  Caesar,  so  that  it  was  in  doubt 
which  the  nation  should  be  ruled  by,  the  sceptre  of 
George  the  Third  or  the  tongue  of  Mr.  Fox." 

His  dismissal  from  office  was  the  occasion  rather  than 
the  cause  of  the  change  in  his  political  opinions  and  con- 
duct. The  change  must  have  come  sooner  or  later  from 
the  growth  and  self-assertion  of  his  large  nature  as  he 
receded  from  the  influence  of  early  association,  and  ex- 
perience in  public  life  broadened  and  deepened  his  con- 
victions of  public  duty. 

His  early  and  devoted  friendship  for  Burke  was  one  of 
the  great  good  fortunes  of  his  life.  More  than  any  man 
in  modern  history,  Edmund  Burke  combined  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  moralist,  the  scholar,  the  philosopher,  the 
statesman,  and  the  orator.  Fox,  in  replying  to  a  compli- 
ment upon  one  of  his  own  speeches  as  published,  said, 
"  If  it  reads  well,  it  is  a  poor  speech." 

Burke  was  unfortunate  in  his  delivery,  but  his  speeches 
as  printed,  splendid  in  diction,  adorned  with  the  imagery 
of  an  exuberant  fancy,   and  illustrations  drawn  from   a 


428  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

learning  which  "  had  taken  all  knowledge  for  its  prov- 
ince," surcharged  with  the  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of 
strong  conviction,  will  live  as  models  and  marvels  of 
eloquence  so  long  as  the  language  is  spoken  or  read. 
They  are  like  lenses  in  receiving  the  scattered  light  of 
the  past  and  concentrating  it  in  a  glowing  focus  upon  the 
future  ;  like  prisms  in  giving  to  common  subjects  the 
beauties  of  rainbow  tints  ;  like  mirrors,  reflecting  the 
images  of  all  time  and  all  nature.  Late  in  his  life  Fox 
said  that  if  he  had  to  renounce  all  the  political  knowledge 
he  had  learned  from  books,  his  own  experience,  and  gen- 
eral intercourse  with  men,  on  the  one  hand,  or  on  the 
other  what  he  had  acquired  from  his  familiar  association 
with  Burke,  he  should  hesitate  which  to  choose. 

Until  he  became  alarmed  and  terrified  by  the  excesses 
of  the  French  Revolution,  Burke  was  extremely  liberal  in 
his  opinions,  an  ardent  advocate  of  popular  rights  and 
representative  government.  In  1780  he  gave  the  support 
of  his  great  name  and  character  to  Dunning's  resolution 
"  That  in  the  opinion  of  the  House,  the  power  of  the 
Crown  has  increased,  is  increasing,  and  ought  to  be  dimin- 
ished." 

Fox  was  dismissed  from  office  in  1772.  At  this  time 
the  American  question,  whose  solution  on  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Revolution  resulted  in  the  independence  of 
the  United  States,  was  looming  up  and  rapidly  over- 
shadowing every  other  interest  in  English  politics.  Fox 
took  his  stand  with  Burke  and  his  friends  and  soon  be- 
came their  acknowledged  leader.  Lord  Russell  quotes 
Gibbon  the  historian  as  saying :  "  From  the  adverse  side 
of  the  House  an  ardent  and  powerful  opposition  grew  up, 
supported  by  the  lively  declamation  of  Barre,  the  legal 
acuteness  of  Dunning,  the  profuse  and  philosophic  fancy 
of  Burke,  and  the  argumentative  vehemence  of  Fox,  who 
in  the  conduct  of  a  party  approved  himself  equal  to  the 
conduct  of  an  Empire." 


LECTURES.  429 

Russell  says  also  that  when  Grattan,  the  great  Irish 
orator,  was  asked  which  were  the  best  speeches  he  had 
ever  heard,  he  replied  without  hesitation,  "  Fox's  during 
the  American  War." 

The  war  was  essentially  the  King's,  whose  habit  of 
mind  it  was  to  identify  all  his  wishes  and  opinions  with 
the  obligations  of  his  coronation  oath.  Even  Lord  North, 
the  Prime  Minister,  who  was  personally  opposed  to  the 
measures  which  precipitated  the  war,  is  said  to  have  been 
overruled  in  the  Cabinet  by  a  majority  of  a  single  vote, 
and  he  continued  in  office  only  at  the  importunate  plead- 
ing of  the  King. 

North  has  suffered  in  American  estimation  because  he 
was  necessarily  the  exposed  point  in  the  attacks  upon  the 
King's  government  by  the  friends  of  America  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  he  has  been  held  up  in  our  school-books  as  our 
fathers'  "  bete  noire" 

With  a  will  too  weak  for  leadership  in  so  stormy  a 
period,  he  was  really  one  of  the  kindest  and  most  amiable 
of  men,  possessing  an  equanimity  of  temper  and  a  fund  of 
humor  which  made  him  personally  loved.  He  had  the 
misfortune  as  a  speaker  to  have  a  tongue  too  large  for 
his  mouth,  so  that  his  articulation  was  thick,  and  his 
utterance  as  though  he  spoke  through  wool,  but  his  state- 
ments when  read  were  clear  and  direct.  He  had  another 
physical  infirmity— a  disposition  to  somnolence.  He 
could  not  keep  awake  through  a  long  debate,  and  slept 
through  a  great  deal  of  the  abuse  and  invective  intended  for 
his  ear.  He  was  often  awakened  to  reply  to  a  long  speech 
of  which  he  had  only  heard  the  opening,  and  used  to  say 
that  he  only  wanted  to  hear  the  first  third  of  a  speech  to 
answer  it,  as  the  remainder  was  sure  to  be  repetition  and 
reiteration.  Upon  one  occasion,  when  a  member  after  a 
ranting  declamation  on  the  condition  of  the  nation, 
pointed  at  North  and  exclaimed — "  There  sits  the  noble 
Lord,  asleep  amid  the  ruins  of  the  country  he  has  de- 


430  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

stroyed,"  he  opened  his  eyes  and  replied  from  his  seat, 
"  I  wish  to  heaven  I  were  !  "  Once  when  he  was  on  the 
floor,  a  furious  dog  rushed  from  under  the  benches,  bark- 
ing violently,  to  the  excitement  and  alarm  of  the  members. 
North  stood  calmly  until  the  dog  was  put  out,  and  then 
resumed  his  speech,  saying — "  The  member  from  Barks- 
dale  having  yielded  the  floor,  I  will  proceed." 

His  Ministry  was  long  and  disastrous.  It  lost  to  Eng- 
land the  American  Colonies,  the  brightest  jewels  of  her 
crown.  At  its  beginning  England  was  the  arbiter  of 
Europe,  at  its  close  she  was  without  an  ally  or  a  pro- 
nounced friend.  He  had  been  attacked  in  Parliament 
with  terrible  severity.  He  had  been  threatened  with  im- 
peachment, and  even  with  the  block.  On  the  night  of 
the  20th  of  March,  1782,  he  unexpectedly  announced  to 
the  House  that  the  King  had  accepted  his  resignation. 
The  members,  expecting  an  all-night  session,  had  not 
ordered  their  carriages  until  morning.  North's  was  the 
only  carriage  in  waiting,  in  the  bitter  and  driving  storm 
of  snow  and  sleet.  As  he  stepped  in,  he  pleasantly  bade 
good  night  to  his  opponents  who  crowded  the  cloak 
room,  saying,  "  You  see,  gentlemen,  the  advantage  of 
being  in  the  secret !  " 

He  came  into  office  again,  in  the  famous  coalition 
between  himself  and  Fox,  and  it  is  one  of  the  strange 
freaks  of  the  whirligig  of  time  that,  at  the  celebration  of 
Fox's  election  for  Westminster,  North  appeared  in  the 
American  Continental  colors,  blue  and  buff. 

He  had  no  antagonist  on  the  floor  more  bitter  and 
pitiless  than  Colonel  Barre\  In  their  old  age  they  both 
lost  their  sight.  At  an  accidental  meeting,  while  talking 
about  their  past  contests,  North  took  his  old  enemy  by 
the  hand,  saying :  "  Notwithstanding  our  former  ani- 
mosities, I  am  convinced  there  are  not  two  men  in  Eng- 
land who  would  rather  see  each  other  than  you  and  I." 

About  the  time  Fox  entered  Parliament  his  mother 


LECTURES.  43 1 

met  the  second  son  of  Lord  Chatham,  then  only  eleven 
years  old,  at  his  mother's  house.  She  was  so  struck  with 
his  manly  behavior  and  ability  that  she  wrote  to  her  hus- 
band, "  Mark  my  words,  this  boy  will  become  a  thorn  in 
Charles'  side."  Ten  years  after,  William  Pitt  the  younger 
entered  Parliament.  I  condense  from  Jesse  the  account  of 
his  first  speech.  The  House  was  filled  to  hear  him,  more 
than  five  hundred  members  being  in  their  seats.  He  was 
the  son  of  the  imperial  Minister  and  peerless  orator  of  Eng- 
land's history,  and  stood  in  the  shadow  of  his  fame.  He 
was  in  the  presence  of  many  who  had  felt  the  spell  of  his 
father's  matchless  eloquence  and  who  would  necessarily 
compare  him  with  the  enchanter  he  was  to  succeed. 
Apparently  unconscious  of  his  own  position  and  the  ex- 
pectant curiosity  of  his  hearers,  this  boy  of  twenty-one 
arose  with  the  self-possession  of  a  veteran  of  debate. 
Without  the  fire  of  Chatham,  the  lambent  flame  of  his 
genius,  he  showed  a  strength,  clearness,  and  accuracy  of 
statement,  a  fulness  of  comprehension  ;  and  the  sentences 
which  flowed  spontaneously  from  his  lips  in  a  rhythm 
rounded  and  perfect,  were  marshalled  and  directed  in  a 
method  so  logical,  and  with  a  purpose  so  clear  and  dis- 
tinct, his  success  was  assured  from  the  first.  It  was  said 
to  be  the  best,  first  speech  ever  made  in  Parliament. 
When  he  sat  down  there  was  a  murmur  of  applause. 
"  A  chip  of  the  old  block,  "  said  a  member  to  Burke — 
"No,"  replied  Burke,—"  it  IS  the  old  block." 

Among  the  first  to  congratulate  him  was  Charles  Fox. 
"You  may  well  compliment  him,"  said  General  Grant,  an 
old  member,  "  you  are  the  only  man  in  the  House  who 
could  make  so  good  a  speech,  and  I  hope  to  live  to  see  you 
boys  battling  it  out,  as  your  fathers  did  before  you."  Fox 
was  disconcerted  by  the  ill-timed  remark,  but  Pitt  parried 
it  with  ready  gracefulness,  saying,"  I  have  no  doubt, 
General,  you  would  like  to  live  as  long  as  Methusaleh." 

At  twenty-two  Pitt,  with  an  air  which  was  called  im- 


432  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

perial  by  his  friends,  and  petulant  by  his  enemies,  said  he 
would  accept  no  office  which  did  not  give  him  a  seat  in 
the  Cabinet.  At  twenty-three  he  was  Prime  Minister, 
and  for  nineteen  years  he  wielded  a  power  and  enjoyed  a 
popularity  such  as  no  other  English  Minister  has  known. 

The  great  mistake  of  the  political  life  of  Fox  was  his 
coalition  with  Lord  North,  by  which  he  became  really 
the  head  of  the  Government  in  1783.  The  keen,  cold 
eyes  of  young  Pitt  saw  at  once  his  advantage,  and  he  was 
instant  to  improve  it.  If  Fox  had  patiently  waited  for 
the  sceptre  of  leadership,  it  would  have  come  soon  and 
been  securely  his  through  the  triumph  of  his  political 
principles  ;  he  snatched  it,  and  it  vanished  to  air  in  his 
hand.  The  unripe  fruit  he  shook  from  the  tree  turned  to 
ashes  on  his  lips. 

The  immediate  cause  of  his  removal  from  office,  how- 
ever, was  as  creditable  to  him  as  his  method  of  gaining  it 
was  inexcusable.  As  the  leader  of  the  administration  he 
introduced  a  bill  for  the  government  of  India,  and  the 
regulation  of  that  great  commercial  monopoly  and  politi- 
cal corporation,  the  East  India  Company.  It  brought  on 
a  contest,  one  of  the  first  between  the  chartered  powers 
and  vested  privileges  of  a  corporation  upon  the  one 
hand,  and  the  natural  rights  of  men  and  supremacy  of 
law  upon  the  other.  The  bill  incidentally  curtailed  the 
patronage  of  the  Crown,  and  thus  excited  the  jealousy  of 
the  King,  whose  cunning  never  slept  and  whose  hatred 
of  Fox  never  abated.  The  bill  passed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons but  was  defeated  in  the  House  of  Lords,  uncon- 
stitutionally and  corruptly,  by  the  personal  influence, 
patronage,  and  threats  of  the  King.  Fox  went  out  of 
Ministerial  office,  Pitt  came  in,  and  the  life-long  intel- 
lectual duel  between  these  giant  political  gladiators  began. 

Their  personal  habits  were  so  different  that  George 
Selwyn,  with  almost  as  much  truth  as  wit,  compared  them 
to  the  idle  and  industrious  apprentices  of  Hogarth's  car- 


LECTURES.  433 

toons.  They  had  two  unfortunate  resemblances.  Both 
were  deep  drinkers — Pitt,  however,  "  for  his  stomach's 
sake  "  — and  each  had  a  faculty  for  getting  in  debt. 
Pitt's  passion  was  ambition.  He  did  not  gamble,  and  in 
that  licentious  time  his  continence  was  often  a  subject  of 
sarcasm  and  ridicule. 

Politically  they  did  not  always  differ  upon  particular 
measures.  They  were  too  large  minded  for  that.  Pitt 
was  a  close  student  of  political  economy  as  taught  by 
Adam  Smith,  in  which  Fox  admitted  he  took  little  inter- 
est, and  time  has  demonstrated  that  Pitt's  views  on  ques- 
tions of  trade  and  commercial  intercourse  were  larger  and 
more  correct  than  his  rival's.  Both  supported  the  meas- 
ures of  Wilberforce  for  the  abolishment  of  the  slave  trade. 
They  were  substantially  together  upon  the  question  of 
the  government  of  Ireland,  though  Fox  went  much  fur- 
ther and  declared  he  would  rather  see  Ireland  separated 
from  the  Crown  than  held  in  subjection  by  force.  Both 
advocated  the  removal  of  the  disabilities  from  Roman 
Catholics,  but  Fox  carried  his  advocacy  so  far  as  to  lose 
the  support  of  his  warm  friends,  the  dissenters,  while  Pitt 
was  silenced  by  the  King,  who  told  him  that  if  compelled 
to  sign  a  bill  enfranchizing  Catholics,  it  would  be  a  viola- 
tion of  his  coronation  oath  and  would  drive  him  mad. 
But  upon  the  principles  of  political  government,  the 
powers  and  duties  of  Crown  and  Parliament  and  their 
reciprocal  restraints,  and  underlying  all  the  rights  of  the 
people,  they  differed  widely,  as  in  personal  character  and 
methods  of  thought.  Pitt,  the  son  of  Chatham  the  great 
Whig  leader,  became  the  leader  of  the  Tories,  and  Fox, 
the  son  of  Holland  the  tower  of  strength  to  the  Tories, 
became  the  leader  of  the  Whigs.  The  fundamental 
nature  of  their  political  difference  can  be  best  explained 
by  the  statement  of  the  fact  in  which  it  culminated  :  In 
1798  Pitt  had  Fox's  name  stricken  from  the  list  of  the 

Privy  Council,  because  the  latter  had  proposed  as  a  toast 

38 


434  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

at  a  Club  meeting — "  Our  Sovereign — the  People  !  "  and 
threatened  him  with  a  prosecution  for  uttering  treason ! 

The  great  oratorical  triumvirate  of  this  period  was 
Burke,  Fox,  and  Pitt.  In  endeavoring  to  compare  these 
men  as  orators  I  have  imagined  them  three  generals,  each 
required  to  capture  a  fortified  city.  Burke  would  encircle 
and  besiege  with  great  armies,  armed  with  every  imple- 
ment of  destruction,  glittering  with  heraldry  and  insignia, 
banners  flying,  music  playing,  glorious  in  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  war.  Pitt,  from  a  commanding  eminence, 
would  bombard  the  place  with  heaviest  artillery. 
Fox  would  find  the  weakest  spot  in  the  walls,  breach 
them  with  a  battering-ram,  and  enter  at  the  head  of  his 
forces,  sword  in  hand. 

The  political  differences  between  Fox  and  Pitt  became 
personal  and  were  embittered  by  the  conduct  of  Pitt,  as 
unwise  as  unjust,  in  endeavoring  to  exclude  Fox  from 
the  representation  of  the  great  constituency  of  West- 
minster, to  which  he  had  been  fairly  elected.  It  was  in 
this  election  that  a  scene  memorable  in  English  politics 
occurred.  The  poll  was  kept  open  forty  days.  Among 
others  who  canvassed  the  City  for  Fox  was  the  beautiful 
Duchess  of  Devonshire.  One  day  she  encountered  a 
burly  butcher  and  solicited  his  vote.  "  I  don't  mind,"  he 
replied,  with  a  look  at  her  fair  face  ;  "  I  will  vote  for 
Mr.  Fox  if  you  '11  give  me  a  kiss."  Whereupon  the 
Duchess  presented  her  face,  in  the  open  street,  and  amid 
the  cheers  of  the  crowd  the  butcher  received  the  most 
tempting  bribe  ever  offered  to  an  English  elector.  I  won- 
der how  many  American   voters  would  have  resisted  it ! 

Perhaps  it  was  the  embittered  personal  feeling  of  these 
great  rivals  which  once  led  them  to  seem  to  exchange 
positions — upon  the  question  of  the  regency. 

George  the  Third's  first  attack  of  insanity  was  in  1765, 
in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  his  age  and  the  fifth  of  his 
reign.     It  was  mild  in  form,  of  short  duration,  and  the 


LECTURES.  435 

nature  of  his  disorder  was  concealed  from  the  public. 
Twenty-five  years  after,  in  his  fiftieth  year,  he  was  attacked 
with  more  severity.  In  the  discussions  in  Parliament,  Fox 
contended  that  the  Prince  of  Wales,  by  virtue  of  his 
position  as  heir-apparent,  was  entitled  as  of  right  to  be 
Regent  during  the  King's  disability,  while  Pitt  held  that 
the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  should  designate  the  man 
by  whom  the  King's  office  should  be  administered.  The 
truth  was  Fox  would  come  into  power  with  the  Prince 
of  Wales  as  Regent,  and  Pitt  go  out.  Thurlow  was  at 
this  time  Lord  Chancellor.  He  was  the  ablest  and  most 
learned  man  in  the  House  of  Lords,  with  an  appearance 
so  grand  and  Jove-like  that  the  witty  and  versatile  genius 
CharlesTownsend  said  of  him,  "  He  must  be  a  hypocrite ; 
no  man  can  be  as  wise  as  he  looks."  He  had  a  grave 
manner,  and  a  ponderous  eloquence  in  keeping  with  his 
august  presence.  He  held  the  seal  of  his  office  from  the 
King,  and  preferred  to  hold  that  bauble  (with  the  salary 
and  position)  from  the  Prince,  to  giving  it  up.  To  be  on 
good  terms  with  both  sides  he  secretly  betrayed  the 
plans  of  Pitt  to  the  Prince,  and  felt  prepared  for  any  emer- 
gency. The  long-continued  illness  of  the  King  decided 
him  to  declare  openly  for  the  Prince,  when  just  in  the 
nick  of  time  he  learned  privately  that  the  King  was 
improving,  and  the  attending  physicians  were  sanguine 
of  his  recovery.  Then  to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  at 
the  last  moment  the  speech  he  was  to  deliver  in  the 
House  of  Lords  in  favor  of  the  Prince  and  Mr.  Fox  was 
pronounced  in  favor  of  the  King  and  Mr.  Pitt.  He 
closed  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  with  the  words — 
"  When  I  forget  my  King,  may  my  God  forget  me  !  " 

"  That  's  the  best  thing  he  can  do  for  you,"  exclaimed 
Burke,  in  that  Irish  brogue  which  he  never  lost. 

"  Forget  you,"  said  Wilkes,  with  as  much  wit  as  pro- 

faneness,  "  He  '11  see  you  d d  first !  "  and  even  Pitt 

ejaculated,  "  Oh  !  the  miserable  scoundrel !  " 


436  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Thurlow's  information  was  correct.  The  King  re- 
covered so  as  to  resume  his  office,  and  his  Lordship 
continued  to  hold  the  Great  Seal. 

The  art  of  political  trimming  and  dodging  was  known 
— at  least  in  the  good  old  days  of  our  grandfathers,  and 
practised — outside  of  a  republic. 

Meantime  the  great  phenomenon  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  French  Revolution,  was  coming  on,  darkening 
and  dwarfing  every  other  consideration  by  its  alarming 
portents.  At  length  it  burst  in  terror  and  the  world  stood 
aghast. 

For  twenty  years  Burke  and  Fox  had  stood  together, 
and  their  friendship  had  been  tried  and  cemented  until  it 
surpassed  the  love  of  woman.  Each  had  a  window  in 
his  soul  for  the  other's  eye,  without  a  wish,  a  thought,  or 
yearning  to  conceal.  That  volcanic  force  which  shattered 
a  throne,  convulsed  an  empire,  and  shook  the  founda- 
tions of  every  government  in  Europe  sundered  these  two 
hearts,  whose  fibres  had  intertwined  until  they  beat  as 
one.  Burke  saw  in  the  Revolution  only  the  destruc- 
tion of  order.  Fox  hailed  it  as  the  dawn  of  liberty. 
Burke  was  shocked  by  its  excesses ;  Fox  filled  with  the 
inspiration  of  its  hopes.  Burke  contemplated  with  horror 
the  Queen,  whom  he  had  seen  in  her  youth,  "  glittering 
like  the  morning  star  full  of  life  and  splendor  and  joy," 
beheaded  by  the  guillotine.  Fox  remembered  with  no 
less  horror  the  men  who  had  been  gibbeted  for  present- 
ing an  humble  petition  to  the  throne  for  the  redress  of 
their  wrongs.  Burke  was  indignant  at  the  enormities  of 
popular  passion,  Fox  with  the  oppressions  which  had 
kindled  feeling  into  passion,  passion  into  fury,  and  made 
even  Justice  vindictive.  Burke  saw  a  government 
subverted,  a  system  overthrown,  property  in  ruins,  streets 
running  blood,  amid  the  mad  orgies  of  an  enraged  popu- 
lace. Fox  reflected  that  it  had  been  a  government  of 
oppression,  where   license    ruled    the    Court,    want   the 


LECTURES.  437 

hovel ;  where  the  rich  ground  the  poor ;  where  it  was 
safer  for  a  peer  to  kill  a  peasant  than  for  a  peasant  to  kill 
a  hare  ;  and  where  armies  could  be  led  to  death  at  the 
whim  of  the  King's  paramour  ;  and  he  clung  to  his  faith, 
the  sheet-anchor  of  his  political  life,  that  from  the  ruin 
and  chaos  of  the  passing  hour  manhood  long  crushed  and 
suffering  would  rise  in  the  dignity  of  natural  rights,  blessed 
in  the  enjoyment  of  freedom. 

Differing  so  widely  on  the  passing  acts  of  this  terrible 
drama,  their  separation  occurred  when  the  curtain  was 
just  rising  upon  its  awful  scenes. 

Fox  had  become  almost  a  republican.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  sneering  at  hereditary  rank  and  titles  of  nobility 
as  relics  of  barbarism,  and  the  great  object  of  his  political 
life  was  to  restrict  the  power  of  the  King.  He  had 
spoken,  outside  of  Parliament,  of  the  French  Constitution 
as  "  the  most  stupendous  and  glorious  edifice  of  liberty 
which  had  been  erected  on  the  foundation  of  human 
integrity  in  any  time  or  country."  Burke  desired  to  reply 
to  the  sentiment  in  parliamentary  debate,  and  on  May 
15,  1 791,  while  discussing  a  bill  for  the  government 
of  Canada,  he  attacked  the  French  Constitution.  He 
was  called  to  order  by  one  of  Fox's  friends.  Fox  satiri- 
cally interposed  that  the  gentleman  had  a  right  to  attack 
the  Constitution  of  any  country.  Burke  was  allowed  to 
proceed  and  in  closing  his  speech  said  substantially — 
"  that  he  had  often  differed  with  Fox  without  loss  of 
friendship,  but  this  French  Constitution  taints  everything 
it  touches.  It  was  certainly  indiscreet  at  his  time  of  life 
to  provoke  enemies  or  give  his  friends  occasion  to  desert 
him ;  yet  if  his  steady  adherence  to  the  British  Constitu- 
tion placed  him  in  such  a  dilemma,  he  would  risk  all,  and, 
as  public  duty  taught  him,  with  his  last  breath  exclaim, 
1  Fly  from  the  French  Constitution.'  " 

Fox,  who  sat  near  him,  said  from  his  seat,  "  There  is  no 
loss  of  friendship."     "  Yes,  there  is,"  replied  Burke,  "  I 


438  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

know  the  cost  of  my  conduct :  I  have  done  my  duty  at 
the  price  of  my  friend.     Our  friendship  is  at  an  end." 

Fox  rose  to  reply.  For  some  moments  emotion  choked 
his  utterance  and  his  words  broke  into  sobs,  while  the 
tears  streamed  down  his  face.  No  girlish  tears  were  they 
— no  fresh-water  drops — but  salt — salt  as  the  brine,  bitter 
as  Marah,  burning  as  fire. 

The  strong  cable  had  broken.  Henceforth  they  sailed 
apart. 

Six  years  after,  Burke  died.  They  were  sorrowful 
years  to  him.  His  temper,  naturally  by  no  means  the 
best,  was  irritated  and  exasperated  by  the  treatment  he 
received  in  his  long  parliamentary  career,  until  be  became 
morbidly  sensitive.  His  long  philosophical  orations, 
splendid  contributions  to  literature,  were  heard  with  im- 
patience, sometimes  received  with  insult.  The  author  of 
the  most  eloquent  orations  ever  spoken  in  English  was 
called  "  the  dinner-bell  of  the  House,"  because  his  rising 
to  speak  was  a  signal  for  the  members  to  disperse.  "  I 
hope  the  gentleman  is  not  going  to  read  all  those  papers, 
and  make  one  of  his  long  speeches  beside,"  said  a  wooden- 
headed  member  one  day  as  Burke  arose — and  Burke  fled 
from  the  House — "  an  eagle  put  to  flight  by  a  jack-daw." 

He  was  so  filled  with  gloomy  apprehensions  that  Buckle 
is  of  opinion  that  he  became  deranged,  though  many  of 
his  productions  were  resplendent  as  ever  with  genius. 
His  son,  in  whom  he  had  garnered  all  his  hopes,  whom 
he  loved  with  more  than  a  father's  love,  and  in  whom  he 
imagined  he  saw  more  than  his  own  genius,  died,  and 
Burke  exclaimed,  "  Now  I  am  alone.  When  the  enemy  is 
at  my  gate  there  is  no  one  to  defend  me."  Years  before 
he  had  said,  "  What  shadows  we  are — what  shadows  we 
pursue,"  and  with  his  great  soul  crowned  with  sorrow  and 
disappointment,  he  passed  from  the  shadows  of  life  into 
the  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death. 

Nineteen  years  before  Burke's  death  Chatham  came  for 


LECTURES.  439 

the  last  time  into  the  House  of  Lords,  to  protest  against 
the  dismemberment  of  the  British  Empire  by  the  con- 
cession of  American  independence.  He  had  been  insane 
— sometimes  rushing  through  England,  keeping  the  state 
of  a  mad  king,  sometimes  shutting  himself  up  and  re- 
fusing to  see  his  most  intimate  friends  for  months.  His 
mental  disorder  was  occasioned  by  violent  remedies  for 
suppressing  the  gout,  and  his  reason  returned  with  a  fresh 
attack  of  the  excruciating  malady  from  which  he  had 
been  a  life-long  sufferer.  He  appeared  in  his  seat  as  one 
coming  from  the  dead.  His  face  was  sallow,  expression- 
less, and  shrunken,  so  that  his  wig  half  concealed  it.  The 
voice  which  had  charmed  and  terrified  was  husky  and 
thick  ;  the  tongue  upon  which  senates  had  hung  enraptured 
was  paralytic.  Only  his  crutch  and  flannels  were  un- 
changed, and  his  indomitable  spirit.  In  vain  he  called 
upon  his  physical  nature  to  respond  to  his  fiery  soul. 
Once  he  sat  down  exhausted.  He  arose,  attempted  to 
proceed,  and  fell  back  in  his  chair,  dying. 

Nine  years  after  Burke,  Pitt,  Chatham's  great  son,  died. 
Deeply  in  debt  after  twenty-two  years  of  public  service 
"  he  died  of  old  age  at  forty  six !  "  He  had  borne  the 
burden  of  Atlas,  and  attempted  the  labors  of  Hercules. 
Out  of  the  French  Revolution,  Napoleon,  the  Man  of  Des- 
tiny had  arisen — striding  from  conquest  to  conquest, 
while  Pitt  with  arm  of  flesh  barred  the  gate  against  his 
entrance  to  universal  empire.  His  three  requisites  of  war 
were  money,  money,  money,  and  the  national  debt  had 
grown  into  frightful  proportions.  His  theory  of  taxation 
was,  that  taxes  were  to  be  estimated  not  by  how  much 
was  taken,  but  by  what  was  left ;  and  the  industry  of 
the  country  was  crushed  by  taxation.  He  formed  combi- 
nations of  European  powers  against  Napoleon  ;  they  were 
scattered  by  the  breath  of  the  conqueror.  He  subsi- 
dized armies  ;  they  were  swept  from  the  earth.  An  occa- 
sional victory  at  sea  only  served  to   light  up  the  dark 


440  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

background  of  humiliation  and  defeat.  The  news  of 
Mack's  surrender  at  Ulm  fell  like  a  blow  upon  his  naked 
heart.  Then  came  Austerlitz,  and  his  heart  broke.  "  You 
can  roll  up  the  map  of  Europe  for  twenty  years,"  he  ex- 
claimed, and  died  with  the  words  "  My  Country,  Oh  ! 
how  I  love  my  Country,"  on  his  lips. 

The  eyes  of  the  nation  instinctively  turned  to  Fox. 
He  had  been  in  public  service  for  thirty-five  years  and 
was  the  last  of  the  giants.  He  had  passed  through  the 
fire  of  purification,  and  the  vices  and  follies  of  his  life 
were  burnt  and  purged  away.  A  short  time  before  it  had 
been  derisively  said,  that  it  was  questionable  whether 
one  or  two  hackney-coaches  would  be  necessary  to  carry 
his  political  friends.  Now  even  the  King  was  reconciled 
to  his  leadership,  and  the  people  recognized  that  his  was  the 
only  arm  strong  enough  for  the  helm.  He  was  fifty- 
six  ;  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  powers.  His  moral  nature 
had  been  chastened  by  disappointment,  his  intellectual 
broadened  and  strengthened  by  his  vast  experience. 
At  last  his  opportunity  had  come.  It  came  too  late. 
His  hour  had  struck.  Six  months  after  the  tomb  of  the 
great  Chatham  had  been  opened  to  receive  his  untitled, 
imperial  son,  all  that  remained  on  earth  of  Charles  James 
Fox  was  laid  by  the  side  of  his  rival  among  England's 
illustrious  dead. 

Before  this  Fox's  most  brilliant  coadjutor  had  disap- 
peared from  public  life.  Ten  years  after,  Richard  Brinsley 
Sheridan,  wit,  dramatist,  orator,  and  upon  occasions  ex- 
celling all  as  each ;  man  of  fashion,  man  of  pleasure,  yet 
as  a  public  man  without  reproach,  was  dying  in  want. 
The  manly  beauty  of  his  face  was  blotched  ;  the  eyes, 
whose  sparkle  had  been  the  light  of  every  circle,  bleared 
and  sunken.  His  rooms  had  been  stripped  of  books, 
paintings,  and  even  necessary  furniture.  A  few  days  be- 
fore he  expired  a  bailiff  threatened  to  carry  him  in  his 
blankets  to  a  debtor's  prison,  and  was  only  prevented  by  a 


LECTURES.  44I 

threat  of  a  prosecution  for  murder.  It  is  even  said  that  the 
costly  funeral  provided  by  the  friends  who  had  neglected 
him  while  living,  as  if  to  show  how  hollow  are  the  pageants 
with  which  we  mock  the  dead,  was  delayed,  until  a  debt 
of  five  hundred  pounds  was  paid  over  the  lid  of  his  coffin. 

Four  years  after  Sheridan,  in  1820,  George  the  Third 
died  in  the  eighty-second  year  of  his  age,  and  sixtieth  of 
his  reign.  He  was  born  to  an  empire  great  as  Caesar's. 
Who  ever  enjoyed  more  splendid  opportunities  for  good, 
with  a  sincerer  wish  to  improve  them  ?  The  only  benefits 
mankind  have  received  from  him,  were  incident  to  his 
greatest  political  blunder,  and  to  the  calamity  which 
clouded  his  life  :  his  blunder  in  driving  the  American 
Colonies  from  their  allegiance,  and  forcing  them  to  become 
free  and  independent  States,  and  his  calamity  in  losing 
his  reason,  which  introduced  milder  and  more  humane 
principles  into  the  general  treatment  of  the  insane. 

Fitted  especially  for  the  enjoyment  of  domestic  life, 
his  sons  mocked  him,  quarrelled  with  him,  or  were  indif- 
ferent to  him. 

Born  to  the  purple,  with  none  to  dispute  his  title  to 
the  greatest  throne  on  Earth,  who  ever  had  promise  of  a 
career  so  brilliant  and  so  happy?  His  childhood  was 
miserable.  After  he  was  twenty-six,  every  moment  of 
his  life  was  haunted  by  the  dread  of  a  recurrence  of  his 
insanity.  It  was  the  skeleton  at  his  feasts,  the  shadow  in 
his  walks,  the  nightmare  of  his  sleep.  The  journey  of 
his  life  lay  along  the  borderland  between  reason  and 
insanity,  where  light  and  darkness  contend. 

Ten  years  before  his  death  his  daughter  died  ;  the  faith- 
ful Cordelia  to  his  Lear.  After  that  he  was  only  a  weak, 
infirm,  poor,  crazy  old  man.  He  became  blind  also.  He 
had  momentary  lucid  intervals,  glimpses  of  reason,  but 
so  brief  as  only  to  make  him  conscious  of  the  terrible  bur- 
den laid  upon  his  life. 

One  day  the  Queen,  through  a  half-open  door  was  sur- 


442  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

prised  by  seeing  him  suddenly  kneel  in  prayer.  His  long, 
thin,  gray  locks  were  streaming  on  his  shoulders,  his  sight- 
less eyes  upturned  towards  heaven.  He  prayed,  almost 
in  the  language  of  Gethsemane,  that  the  cup  of  his 
affliction  might  pass  from  him,  if  such  were  the  will  of  his 
Divine  Master;  if  not,  that  he  might  have  strength  to 
suffer  to  the  end.  He  arose — his  reason  fled  forever. 
He  became  deaf,  as  well  as  blind.  Never  again  did  the 
light  of  day  or  the  voice  of  love  reach  that  poor, 
crazed  soul,  which  went  moaning  in  the  awful  loneliness 
of  its  dark  and  silent  clay  prison,  until  death  closed  the 
scene  in  the  double  darkness  and  silence  of  the  grave  ! 

This  is  public  life  !  These  are  the  prizes  for  which  men 
fret  their  hearts,  consume  their  brains  and  peril  their 
souls  !     Dust  and  ashes.     All  is  vanity. 

But  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  individual  life,  the 
stream  of  human  life  rolls  on  its  mighty  volume  in  unceas- 
ing current ;  and  above  the  shows  of  time,  above  passion 
and  suffering,  and  joy  and  sorrow  and  great  ambition  ; 
above  the  blinding  mists  of  folly,  the  drifting  clouds  of 
error,  unmoved,  forever  bright  in  the  infinite  heights,  the 
stars  are  shining.     Beyond  them What  ? 


CHAPTER   IV. 
MAGAZINES— JOURNALS. 

WHEN  impulse  moved  or  fancy  led  Mr.  Booth  in  leisure 
moments  to  do  so,  he  wrote  sketches  intended  for  Jour- 
nals or  Magazines.  A  few  selections  from  them  are  given 
which  will  serve  the  double  purpose  of  illustrating  his 
lighter  literary  style  and  of  interesting  the  reader.  He 
seldom  made  correction  or  emendation  of  any  of  his 
work.  Yet  he  was  a  quick  and  keen  critic  of  the  value 
of  words.  When  Governor,  he  once  handed  his  Secretary' 
a  decision  to  embody  in  the  pardon  of  a  convict.  Glan- 
cing over  the  completed  pardon  he  smiled,  drew  his  pen 
through  a  sentence,  and  directed  a  corrected  copy  to  be 
made.  A  sentence  reading  "  He  is  the  only  son  of  a 
widowed  mother"  was  changed  to  "  He  is  the  only  son 
of  a  widow." 

Of  his  newspaper  editorial  work — a  volume  of  which 
he  contributed  to  various  journals  during  his  lifetime — 
only  one  specimen  is  presented :  a  paper  on  Horace 
Greeley.     It  is  interesting  reading  even  at  this  date. 

MY  LAST  NIGHT  IN  LONDON. 


I  was  seated  on  the  crowded  top  of  a  London  'bus 
about  to  start  for  Kensington,  when  a  woman,  neither 
young,  handsome,  nor  well-dressed,  carrying  a  heavy 
basket,  began  to  climb  the  steps  with  some  difficulty. 

443 


444  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

I  reached  down  and  lifted  her  basket,  gave  her  my  place, 
and  squeezed  myself  on  the  seat  forward.  The  addition 
was  not  particularly  welcome  to  the  prior  occupants,  for 
there  was  only  "  room  for  one  more  "  ;  but  the  old  woman 
with  a  basket  would  have  been  less  welcome,  and  the 
phlegmatic  Bull  on  my  right  contented  himself  with  a 
grunt  and  a  look  at  his  watch,  which  plainly  meant, 
"  Time  *s  up.      St.  Paul  is  a  minute  slow." 

"  You  are  an  American,  I  perceive,  sir,"  said  the  gentle- 
man on  my  left. 

"Yes ;  and  you  have  been  in  America." 

"  I  understand.  You  think  I  would  have  waited  for  an 
introduction,  if  I  had  not.  Very  good  ;  consider  that  we 
are  introduced.  You  are  Smith  ;  I  am  Brown.  No  cards. 
Quite  right.  I  spent  several  years  in  your  country. 
Came  home  on  business — settlement  of  estate,  you  know. 
When  I  get  through,  I  think  I  shall  go  back  and  become 
an  American  subject." 

"Citizen,  you  mean." 

"  Beg  your  pardon — of  course  I  do  ;  trick  of  the  tongue, 
you  know.  Citizen — subject :  S-u-b-j-e-c-t,  c-i-t-i-z-e-n  ; 
what  a  deal  of  difference  it  makes  how  you  spell  it ! 
Nothing  in  a  name?  Give  Tray  a  bad  one,  and  he  won't 
think  so.  The  world  is  governed  by  names.  Do  you 
think  Palmerston  would  be  Premier  if  his  name  were 
1  Bullyrag  '  ?  More  wars  have  been  fought  over  names 
than  from  all  other  causes  combined — one,  I  think,  was 
over  the  correct  spelling  of  a  name.  The  placing  of  a 
vowel  made  a  difference  in  the  plan  of  redemption." 

We  rattled  for  some  time  over  the  stony  streets,  my 
companion  apparently  absorbed  in  his  philosophy,  when 
he  suddenly  exclaimed:  "Well,  you  must  admit  the 
gooseberries  are  larger  in  England  than  in  the  States  ?  " 

"  Yes,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument." 

"  Tut,  tut,  man ;  for  the  sake  of  the  truth." 

"  But    names,     you     know — words — words — words  !  " 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  445 

"  Eh  !  a  palpable  hit !  You  can  have  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  the  bird  of  freedom,  the  ballot-box  that  executes 
a  freeman's  will,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing — names,  you 
know — but  in  the  matter  of  gooseberries,  I  stand  upon 
the  eternal  verities.  You  have  the  longest  rivers,  the 
largest  lakes,  the  grandest  falls,  the  fastest  horses,  and 
the  prettiest  women,  but  we  have  the  biggest  gooseber- 
ries.    How  long  shall  you  stay  in  England  ?  " 

"  A  fortnight,  perhaps ;  there  is  nothing  of  business  or 
pleasure  to  keep  me,  only  I  can't  get  out  of  London." 

"  Right.  London  is  a  hard  place  to  get  out  of.  It 
may  be  ugly,  foggy,  dingy,  smoky,  rainy,  nasty,  but  it  is 
the  world's  maelstrom  and  draws  everything  towards  its 
vortex.  Do  you  return  to  the  city  to  dine  ?  I  get  down 
here  [We  had  crossed  the  bridge].  After  dinner  I  shall 
go  to  19  Leicester  Square,  to  have  a  bottle  of  wine  and 
a  cigar.  If  you  have  nothing  better,  I  shall  be  glad  to 
see  you.  There  is  a  sign  over  the  door  '  Good  wine  needs 
no  bush.'  Go  up  stairs — first  room  to  the  left.  I  shall 
bring  a  half-dozen  English  gooseberries — good  day !  " 

I  had  nothing  better.  In  fact,  I  was  simply  floating  in 
the  vast  circles  of  the  London  maelstrom,  and  after  a 
solitary  dinner  at  the  "  Wellington  "  I  found  my  friend 
Brown  at  the  place  he  had  appointed,  with  his  cigar,  port, 
and  the  Times. 

"  Glad  to  see  you,"  said  he  ;  "  being  idle,  we  can  afford 
to  be  prompt.  Nothing  else  to  think  about,  you  know. 
Deal  of  humbug  about  punctuality — a  man  is  not  a  clock 
— a  busy  man's  engagements  will  overlap.  Strike  when 
the  iron  's  hot — work  when  you  are  in  the  vein.  Your 
methodical  man  never  gets  above  the  treadmill." 

"  Is  it  because  you  are  unmethodical  that  you  are 
reading  the  Times  after  dinner?  " 

"  Oh,  no  ;  I  am  methodical — slave  to  habit.  Inherited 
my  servitude,  I  dare  say  ;  can't  remember  that  I  ever  had 
individuality.     In  the  morning  I  read  the  Star  or  the 


446  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Telegraph — that 's  my  American  side  ;  I  am  a  Yankee  in 
the  forenoon  ;  in  the  afternoon  I  grow  conservative,  and 
take  to  the  Post  and  Times.  By  the  way,  I  see  the 
Government  was  nearly  beaten  last  night  on  a  test  vote. 
Should  n't  wonder  if  old  Palm,  had  to  go  out  and  Derby 
or  Dizzie  should  come  in." 

"  That  reminds  me — tell  me  how  a  new  Prime  Minister 
is  selected  when  the  old  resigns.  It  is  a  mere  fiction,  I 
suppose,  that  the  Queen  designates  the  man  who  is  to 
organize  and  lead  the  Government.  In  the  United  States, 
you  know,  we,  the  people,  elect  the  President,  and  he 
appoints  the  Cabinet." 

"  So  you  do  ;  but  I  believe  you,  the  people,  don't  each 
select  the  man  you  prefer  and  vote  for  him.  You  vote, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  for  presidential  electors,  and  they 
vote  for  a  man  before  selected  by  the  convention,  and 
that — you  know  better  than  I  how  it  is.  In  Great  Britain 
the  House  of  Commons  is  supposed  to  represent  the  peo- 
ple, and  probably  does  as  well  as  the  "  National  Conven- 
tion "  with  you  ;  though  I  should  not  care  to  inquire  too 
curiously  how  many  of  the  members  get  their  seats.  The 
opposition  agree  among  themselves  who  shall  be  their 
leader  when  they  come  into  power  ;  he  consults  with  the 
chiefs  as  to  the  make-up  of  the  Government,  kisses  the 
Queen's  hand,  and  the  seals  are  transferred.  A  lay  figure 
would  answer  very  well  for  the  Queen,  not  be  so  expen- 
sive— or  prolific — but  names,  you  know  !  We  should  not 
be  so  willing  to  be  shot  or  be  head-shortened  for  her 
Majesty  of  wax  and  wires.  I  forgot — here  are  your  six 
gooseberries,  large  as  cherries  ;  you  can  keep  the  Missis- 
sippi and  Niagara — your  half  of  it  at  least — but  a  Barbary 
horse  against  a  rapier  we  are  ahead  on  gooseberries." 

Half  a  dozen  or  more  gentlemen  had  dropped  in,  taken 
their  seats  at  the  tables,  sipping  and  smoking,  no  one  ap- 
parently paying  attention  to  his  neighbors,  when  a  young 
fellow  entered  whom,  if  I  had  met  in  New  York,  I  should 


MA  GA  ZINE  S—JO  URN  A  LS.  44  7 

have  taken  for  a  genteel  specimen  of  the  Bowery  boy. 
He  was  short,  stout,  square-jawed,  close-shaved  and 
cropped,  and  might  easily  be  older  than  at  first  glance  he 
looked. 

"  Would  h'any  gent  like  to  buy  this  'ere  wallet  ?  "  was 
his  salutation. 

No  one  offered  to  invest. 

"  Will  sell  it  for  two  crowns — can't  buy  one  like  it 
h'on  Regent  Street  for  four." 

No  reply. 

"  If  no  gent  wants  to  buy  the  wallet,  I  '11  put  it  h'up 
h'against  two  crowns  with  h'any  gent  as  wants  to  bet,  that 
he  can't  turn  over  the  h'ace !  " 

Saying  which  he  produced  three  cards — ace,  queen,  and 
seven — placed  them  bottom  up  on  the  table  and  began 
moving  them  under  and  over,  "  French  monte  "  fashion. 

"  I  don't  want  your  wallet,  or  care  to  bet  two  crowns, 
but  I  '11  put  up  half  a  sovereign  I  can  guess  the  ace,"  said 
one  of  the  company. 

"  Make  it  a  sovereign,  won't  you  ;  I've  got  just  one 
sovereign  left." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  " 

He  turned  the  queen. 

"  Could  n't  get  by  woman,  you  see  ;  that  's  your  par- 
ticular weakness.     Try  again,  sir  ?  " 

A  suspicion  flashed  across  me  that  my  philosophic 
friend  Brown  had  invited  me  there  to  be  fleeced  at  "  three- 
card  monte."  The  look  of  amazement  of  the  man  who 
turned  the  queen  could  scarcely  be  simulated,  and  if  he 
had  been  a  capper  he  would  probably  have  won.  I  lit  a 
cigar,  and  watched  the  game  with  awakened  curiosity. 
Every  man  in  the  room  seemed  to  be  certain  he  could 
guess  the  winning  card.  I  never  saw  men  become  so  sud- 
denly interested  and  excited  about  anything  so  simple. 
Bets  ran  up  to  five  pounds.  In  thirty  minutes  the  dealer 
must  have  cleared  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  pounds. 


448  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  Try  your  luck,  sir  ?  "  said  the  dealer  to  me,  as  the  game 
lulled. 

"  I  thank  you,  no  ;  I  once  saw  a  man  hanged  for  play- 
ing that  game  '  not  wisely  but  too  well,'  and  I  have  had 
a  prejudice  against  it  ever  since." 

"  If  I  thought  there  had  been  any  cheating,  I  'd  throw 
the  fellow  out  of  the  window,"  said  one  of  the  losers. 

"  Fair  game ;  nothing  but  luck,  'pon  honor,"  said  the 
dealer,  "  if  h'any  gent  wants  to  try " 

"  Hanged  !  you  say  ?  "  interrupted  Brown  ;  "  tell  us 
about  it." 

I  told  in  a  few  words  the  story  of  young  Rowe,  who 
was  hanged  in  Sacramento  in  '51  for  killing  a  man  at 
"  French  monte." 

"  What  did  you  call  his  name?"  asked  the  dealer. 

"  He  was  a  Liverpool  lad :  his  name  was  Edward 
Rowe." 

It  was  fancy,  perhaps — I  thought  the  dealer  started  as 
though  stung. 

"  Hanged  without  judge  or  jury  !  "  exclaimed  Brown. 

"  Names,  names — names,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  names  may  have  their  uses.  Let  us  go  over  to 
the  Alhambra.  We  can  hear  some  fine  music  there  ;  this 
room  is  confounded  close." 

A  few  steps  brought  us  to  the  Alhambra.  The  large 
and  brilliantly-lighted  saloon  was  pretty  well  filled  with 
gentlemen  and  ladies — the  latter,  I  supposed,  of  the  demi- 
monde for  the  most  part — laughing,  talking,  smoking,  and 
sipping  coffee  and  wine  at  the  little  tables — some  hundreds 
in  all.  At  the  far  end  of  the  room  was  a  fine  orchestra, 
that  served  to  fill  in  the  pauses  of  conversation  for  every- 
body. The  scene  was  very  gay  and  animated.  We  had 
not  sat  many  minutes  before  I  observed  a  lady  facing  us, 
three  tables  in  front,  whose  face  and  figure  would  any- 
where have  arrested  attention.  She  was  a  Minerva  or 
Juno — large,  well-formed,  with   fair  complexion  ;  her  arm 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  449 

beneath  a  loose,  fur  cape,  looked  as  smooth,  white,  and 
firm  as  marble.  Brown  and  I  must  have  seen  her  and 
noticed  one  peculiarity  at  the  same  time,  for  I  heard  him 
exclaim,  in  an  under,  soliloquy  tone  :  "  Eyes  blue  as  the 
blue  of  heaven  ;  hair  black  as  the  hinges  of  h — 1."  She 
had  a  far-away  look.  One  could  be  certain  she  saw  noth- 
ing, heard  nothing  around  her.  I  could  not  but  wonder 
what  visions  filled  her  eyes,  to  what  voices  was  she  listen- 
ing, and  why  was  she  there.  After  hearing  several  pieces 
of  music  and  two  or  three  songs  we  arose  to  go.  I  am 
sure  it  was  not  intentional  on  my  part ;  I  don't  know 
which  started  first — the  lady  was  immediately  behind  us. 
Brown  loitered  for  a  moment.  As  I  turned  for  him  at 
the  door  I  could  only  observe  that  he  had  addressed  her 
a  remark,  and  infer  that  her  reply,  whether  it  was  a  look 
or  a  word,  was  short  and  unsatisfactory.  It  was  raining 
quite  sharply.  My  tongue  is  not  accustomed  to  speak 
itself,  but  it  did  this  time,  and  said  : 

"  Shall  I  call  a  cab  for  you,  madam  ?  " 

"  If  you  will  be  so  kind." 

The  lady  had  no  umbrella.  I  offered  her  mine,  and 
walked  with  her  to  the  cab.  I  did  not  understand  the  di- 
rection she  gave  the  driver,  but  caught  the  words  "  drive 
slow,"  as  she  took  her  seat.  The  driver  still  held  the  door 
open,  evidently  supposing  I  was  to  get  in.  I  did  as 
most  Americans  abroad  would  do  under  similar  circum- 
stances—  yielded  to  the  impulse  of  adventure;  and 
the  door  closed  upon  me  as  the  thought  came,  "how 
foolish." 

"  You  are  an  American,  I  suppose,"  said  the  lady  as  we 
started. 

The  similarity  to  the  remark  of  Brown  in  the  morning, 
struck  me.  Could  it  be  that  this  was  a  second  scheme  to 
ensnare  me  ? 

"  Why  do  you  suppose  so  ?  " 

"  I  might  say,  now,  because  you  answer  with  a  question. 
29 


450  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

I  did  suppose  from  your  general  appearance  and  voice ; 
besides,  you  wear  a  soft  hat." 

"You  are  observing." 

"  Sometimes." 

"  Did  you  know  the  gentleman  who  was  with  me  at  the 
caf$V%  ' 

"  I  did  not  know  there  was  a  gentleman  with  you. 
Was  the  man  who  spoke  to  me  as  I  came  out  your 
friend  ?  " 

"  He  was  my  companion  this  evening.  I  never  met 
him  until  this  morning." 

"  You  seem  to  be  fond  of  adventure  ?  " 

The  devil  took  possession  of  my  tongue  to  say — what 
could  I  have  uttered  more  imprudent :  "  I  am  almost  a 
total  stranger  in  London,  where  I  shall  remain  but  a  few 
days.  Not,  perhaps,  naturally  adventurous  ;  I  have  de- 
liberately tied  up  the  helm,  to  float  wherever  the  winds  and 
currents  shall  carry  me  on  this  vast  ocean  of  London  life." 

"  It  is  a  dangerous  experiment,"  she  replied,  in  a  tone 
that  was  earnest  and  pathetic,  "  this  tying  up  the  helm  and 
abandoning  self-direction,  even  for  an  hour,  a  moment. 
We  cannot  afford  to  play  with  life  and  opportunity  any 
more  than  the  charioteer  can  drop  the  reins  in  the  race." 

"  You  believe,  then,  in  the  power  of  self-direction  ?  " 

"  Yes,  within  certain  limits.  Absolute  free-will  is  the 
vainest  of  all  the  vanities  with  which  man  ever  deluded 
himself  into  the  idea  that  he  was  a  god.  We  have  the 
power  of  choice,  but  within  certain  and  very  narrow  pos- 
sibilities. The  mariner  cannot  control  the  winds,  silence 
the  storm,  or  remove  the  reef  ;  but  he  must  stand  by  the 
helm.     Are  you  a  fatalist  ?  " 

"  In  theory,  yes  ;  in  practice,  no  !  I  choose  among  the 
possibilities.  But  in  reason  I  know  my  choice  is  prede- 
termined by  temperament,  mental  constitution,  by  all  the 
chain  of  '  circumstances  over  which  I  have  had  no  control,' 
but  which  have  made  me  what  I  am." 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  45 1 

"  Circumstances  make  us  what  we  are?  " 

M  Yes  ;  if  you  had  been  born  in  Turkey,  would  you  not 
have  been  a — Mohammedan  ?  " 

"  Would  I  had  been !  Women  have  no  souls  there.  I 
have  admitted  the  range  of  possibilities  is  narrow.  Birth, 
surroundings,  etc.,  determine  the  range ;  but  within  that 
I  insist  upon  a  power  to  choose,  which  constitutes  all  we 
enjoy  of  free  agency.  If  two  courses  are  before  you,  both 
possible,  can  you  not  choose  which  to  take  ?  " 

"  I  seem  to  choose.  But  really,  only  that  is  possible 
which  I  do  take.  Our  friends  can  usually  predict  what 
we  shall  do  in  a  given  event  better  than  we  can  ourselves. 
If  a  ball  is  subjected  to  two  forces  from  opposite  directions, 
it  must  obey  the  stronger,  though  only  the  event  proves 
which  is  the  stronger." 

"  The  illustration  exposes  the  fallacy  of  the  reasoning. 
You  assume  that  mind  and  matter  are  governed  by  the 
same  laws — motives  and  forces  convertible  terms.  You 
cannot  apply  mathematics  to  morals,  any  more  than  you 
can  the  decalogue  to  the  stars." 

"  You  have  thought  upon  this  subject  more  deeply 
than  I." 

"  Perhaps  not.  My  conclusions  do  not  come  from 
speculation  and  study,  but  from  experience  and  suffering. 
I  am  so  much  more  a  fatalist  in  action  than  you  that  I 
have  to-night  staked  the  most  important  event  of  my  life 
upon  an  omen." 

"  And  that  omen  is ?  " 

"  Yourself." 

"  You  will  find  me  a  good  omen,  I  hope." 

"  To  one  who  abandons  self-direction — to  the  fatalist — 
there  is  neither  good  nor  bad,  only  the  inevitable." 

"  You  speak  now  like  a  fatalist  from  conviction,  not 
from  circumstance." 

"  No.  The  possibilities  with  me  are  reduced  to  two.  I 
cannot  choose.     Fate  must  decide." 


452  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  How  strange  that  our  lives  should  intersect  at  this 
point.  When  we  were  born  the  chances  were  millions  to 
one  that  we  should  never  meet — millions  of  millions  that 
we  should  not  meet  to-night.     Is  this  fate  ?  " 

"  I  accept  it  as  fate.  Our  lives  cross  others  constantly, 
just  as  the  weaver's  shuttle  flashes  from  hand  to  hand 
across  the  web,  weaving  the  woof  of  destiny.  You  see  I 
am  a  fatalist — without  being  able  to  shake  off  the  sense 
of  responsibility.  Would — but  let  us  talk  of  something 
else — the  opera  ;  Grisi  and  Mario  ;  the  Derby  that  was  ; 
the  Osborn  that  is  to  be.  My  fate  is  not  yet  determined, 
and  I  do  not  want  you  to  be  a  self-conscious  omen.  Please 
ask  the  driver  to  go  faster." 

We  talked  at  each  other,  but  shot  wide.  The  driver 
struck  a  pace  that  was  not  favorable  to  conversation,  and 
kept  it  up  for  half  an  hour  or  more.  He  drove  through 
narrow  streets,  turned  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  until  I 
lost  all  idea  as  to  the  direction  we  were  going  or  the  part 
of  the  city  we  were  in.  He  stopped  at  last,  and  as  I  got 
out  I  observed  that  the  street  was  broad,  well  lighted,  and 
very  quiet  ;  the  houses  evidently  residences,  many  of 
them  elegant,  and  all  of  the  better  sort.  Certainly  it  was 
a  "  respectable  "  quarter.  I  looked  around  for  the  dome 
of  St.  Paul's,  to  take  my  bearings,  but  could  not  find  it,  or 
it  was  too  dark  to  distinguish  it. 

"  Wait  for  me,"  said  I  to  the  driver. 

"  But,  your  honor — " 

"  Here  is  a  sovereign  ;  I  will  pay  the  fare  when  I  get 
home." 

"All  right,  your  honor." 

While  I  was  speaking  to  the  driver,  the  lady  had  as- 
cended the  steps  and  stood  in  the  open  door.  There  was 
no  one  in  the  hall  when  we  entered,  nor  any  sign  of  life 
in  the  house,  which  was,  however,  lighted  throughout. 
The  hall  was  wide  and  high,  extending  up  through  both 
stories.  The  lady  led  the  way  back  to  a  large  sitting-room, 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URN  A  LS.  453 

asked  to  be  excused  for  a  few  minutes,  and  left  me  alone. 
The  room  was  simply  but  luxuriously  furnished,  the  pre- 
vailing color  blue  with  a  delicate  figure  of  black  inwrought. 
I  never  had  seen  the  combination  before,  and  thought  of 
the  eyes  and  the  hair.  There  were  books  on  the  table, 
marbles  and  bronzes  on  the  mantel,  paintings  on  the  walls ; 
one  of  the  latter  had  been  reversed  and  hung  with  its  face 
inward.  I  was  in  Calypso's  Isle,  and  felt  the  presence  of 
the  siren  in  the  very  air. 

The  lady  was  absent  long  enough  for  me  to  become 
somewhat  nervous,  and  to  take  a  pretty  thorough  invoice 
of  myself  and  of  the  contents  of  the  room.  The  general 
conclusions  I  reached  with  more  or  less  certainty  were  : 
that  I  had  acted  the  fool — and  would  again  under  the 
same  circumstances ;  that  the  tapestry,  curtains,  carpets, 
etc.,  had  been  manufactured  for  my  mysterious  friend  ; 
that  she  had  the  use  of  money  in  abundance,  whether  her 
own  or  not ;  that  something  had  happened,  or  was  about 
to ;  that  the  reversed  painting  had  been  recently  turned 
to  the  wall,  and  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the  real 
or  imaginary  question  which  I  was  involuntarily  to  decide. 

One  feels  so  stupid  to  be  found  alone,  doing  absolutely 
nothing,  that  I  took  a  seat  by  the  table,  and  commenced 
turning  over  the  leaves  of  a  book  with  an  affectation  of  non- 
chalence  I  by  no  means  felt.  The  book  was  a  volume  of 
Shakespeare,  and  I  opened  it  at  Hamlet.  When  the  lady 
re-entered  I  was  surprised  into  self-forgetfulness,  and  at  the 
moment  would  not  have  exchanged  my  folly  for  a  crown 
of  wisdom  set  with  rubies  and  diamonds.  She  was 
radiantly  beautiful.  She  seemed  to  have  become  smaller, 
paler,  and  her  eyes  darker.  She  had  changed  her  dress 
for  one  of  light  silk,  a  white  lace  cape  hung  loosely  from 
her  shoulders,  and  over  it  her  hair  was  thrown  back  in 
silk-like  curls.  Her  throat,  arm,  bust,  face,  complexion, 
head,  form — I  may  have  dreamed  of  such  a  combination 
of  loveliness  ;  I  had  never  before  seen  it ! 


454  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

She  carried  a  small,  silver  tray,  upon  which  were  two 
glasses  of  wine.  It  was  a  time  to  observe  everything,  and 
I  noticed  that  the  glasses  were  of  different  sizes  and 
shapes.  I  stood  in  the  silent  homage  of  admiration  until 
she  placed  the  tray  on  the  table,  when,  without  speaking, 
involuntarily  I  took  her  hand,  led  her  to  a  lounge  and 
seated  myself  opposite  to  her,  her  face  and  my  back  to  the 
light. 

"  Pardon  me,  madam " 

"  You  may  call  me  Helena." 

"  Pardon  me  then,  Helena,  if  I,  too,  consult  an  omen, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Virgilian  lots." 

I  opened  the  book  and  read : 

"  It  is  the  poisoned  cup — it  is  too  late  !  " 

I  looked  her  steadily  in  the  face  ;  it  was  marble  in  color 
and  immobility. 

"  Which  of  us,"  I  said  slowly,  "  shall  select  the  glass  to 
drink?  The  chances  of  destiny  may  be  narrowed  to  two, 
still  there  is  a  choice  !  Color,  size,  shape,  position,  or  whim 
may  determine  it — that  is  free  agency.  All  unknown, 
life  may  be  in  the  one,  death  in  the  other — that  is 
destiny." 

"  Then,"  said  she,  "  you  can  cheat  destiny,  and  drink 
neither." 

"  I  am  not  sure  of  that,  even  when  forewarned  ;  and  if 
I  did  I  might  encounter  the  same  chances  in  any  hour  of 
my  life  in  turning  to  the  right  or  left." 

"  Do  you  imagine,"  she  replied,  after  a  pause,  "  if  I  had 
intended  there  should  be  a  victim,  and  chance  select 
which,  that  I  would  have  brought  dissimilar  glasses  ?  " 

I  opened  the  book  and  read  :  "  Laertes  wounds  Hamlet ; 
then  in  scuffling  they  change  rapiers,  and  Hamlet  wounds 
Laertes." 

"  I  might,"  said  I,  "  imagine  a  great  many  things,  and 
they  might  all  be  very  absurd,  for  I  confess  the  scene 
seems  more  dream-like  than  real.     Indulge  me   for  one 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  455 

moment  if  I  imagine  a  case :  One  of  the  glasses,  we  will 
suppose,  is  poisoned  ;  upon  a  given  event  you  intend  to 
drink  it.  Would  it  not  be  better  for  me,  to  give  me  the 
poison  ?  The  police  can  easily  trace  me  to  this  house ; 
my  statement  of  the  facts  would  never  be  accepted  as  an 
explanation  of  your  mysterious  death.  I  have  no  friends 
in  London,  few  acquaintances.  I  do  not  think  I  fear 
death  more  than  most  of  men,  but  I  have  some  choice  as 
to  the  manner  of  my  taking  off,  and  without  flattery  pre- 
fer your  hand  to  Calcraft's." 

Her  fingers  were  clutched  as  though  upon  the  hilt  of  a 
dagger. 

"  You  see,  then,"  I  added,  "  destiny  might  revenge  it- 
self if  I  should  attempt  to  cheat.  It  is  something  danger- 
ous to  trifle  with  fate." 

I  arose  and  took  up  the  larger  glass.  She  did  not 
move,  and  I  set  it  back. 

Resuming  my  seat  I  said  :  "  If  you  will  allow  me  I  will 
relate  to  you  a  chapter  from  my  own  experience.  Des- 
tiny will  not  begrudge  us  half  an  hour." 

She  did  not  speak,  but  I  understood  her  look  and 
changed  my  seat  to  a  chair  beside  her,  so  that  our  faces 
were  both  to  the  light.  She  was  toying  with  the  tassel 
of  the  lounge ;  the  gesture  might  have  been  one  of  im- 
patience, or  of  mental  conflict.  I  was  not  sure  that  I 
could  interest  her,  but  I  proceeded  as  follows  : 

"  When  I  was  scarcely  '  out  of  my  teens,'  I  left  my  home 
in  one  of  the  Atlantic  States  and  went  to  California.  I 
will  not  detail  the  circumstances  of  the  first  two  years  of 
my  life  there,  which  brought  me  into  the  mental  condition 
I  am  about  to  describe.  There  are  follies  that  bring  re- 
morse like  guilt,  and  weakness  often  stains  like  wickedness. 
I  found  disappointment  in  my  new  home,  suspected 
treachery  in  my  old.  Only  partially  recovered  from  severe 
illness,  I  was  weak,  morose,  gloomy,  angry  with  the  world 
and  myself.     With  as  much  deliberation  as  it  is  possible 


456  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

to  exercise  under  such  circumstances,  and  upon  such  a 
subject,  I  determined  to  commit  suicide.  It  may  seem 
strange,  but  it  was  true,  I  found  it  more  difficult  to  decide 
the  manner  than  resolve  the  act.  I  tried  to  familiarize 
my  imagination  with  different  forms  of  violent  death, 
but  the  more  I  entertained  them  the  more  repulsive  they 
seemed.  I  felt  that  I  could  take  poison,  but  feared  ex- 
posure in  the  attempt  to  get  it.  I  was  in  this  mood  for 
days.  One  evening,  with  the  impulse  of  desperation,  I 
entered  a  drug-store  in  San  Francisco  and  asked  for  five 
grains  of  morphine.  I  had  often  been  as  far  as  the  door 
before  upon  the  same  errand,but  my  heart  had  failed  me. 
To  my  surprise  the  druggist,  who  was  an  elderly  and 
benevolent-looking  man,  gave  me  the  morphine  without  a 
remark,  contenting  himself  with  writing  poison,  in  large 
letters,  upon  the  package.  I  hurried  to  my  room,  and 
locked  myself  in.  I  dissolved  the  powder,  and  gazed 
upon  the  liquid  with  a  strange  feeling  of  exultation. 
Now,  thought  I,  I  am  the  master  of  my  fate.  At  last 
I  have  supreme  control  over  what  is  my  own.  Mine  ? 
Both  worlds  are  mine  !  This  key  unlocks  the  door  of  the 
great  mystery.  Soon  I  shall  know  more  than  the  sages 
of  the  earth  of  what  we  most  desire  to  know,  or  find  that 
sweetest  antidote,  oblivion.  Now  I  shall  be  revenged 
upon  those  who  have  deserted  or  betrayed  me  ;  they  shall 
be^ortured  with  a  vain  remorse.  The  burden  shall  roll 
from  my  heart  upon  theirs ;  now  I  shall  escape  from  my- 
self. 

"  I  drank  the  poison.  In  an  instant  my  feelings 
changed  ;  I  was  no  longer  master.  I  had  become  the 
slave  of  an  act  that  was  done.  I  had  locked  the  door 
upon  one  world — might  I  not  take  up  the  burden  in  the 
next  to  find  there  was  no  escape  ?  I  thought  of  the  coro- 
ner's inquest  ;  the  burial  in  '  Potter's  Field  '  ;  the  item  in 
the  newspapers.  Perhaps  my  death  would  bring  relief 
rather  than  remorse  to  the  hearts  I  would  wring.     All  the 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  457 

descriptions  of  the  eternal  doom  of  the  wicked  that  I  had 
heard  in  my  childhood  came  back  to  me.  Gradually, 
under  the  potent  influence  of  the  drug,  I  lapsed  into  a 
state  of  semi-consciousness.  My  hearing  became  so  acute 
that  the  sounds  from  the  street  were  like  the  noise  of  a 
battle.  I  fancied  that  I  could  hear  the  circulation  of  my 
blood,  and  it  roared  like  Niagara.  I  know  not  how  long 
this  condition  lasted  ;  it  seemed  hours.  I  wondered  how 
long  I  should  be  in  dying.  At  length  I  became  more 
tranquil,  and  felt  as  if  sinking  to  sleep.  I  was  buoyed 
upon  the  air.  I  was  floating  over  a  vast  desert  plain, 
with  a  sense  of  falling  and  swooning.  No  object  was  in 
sight  but  plain  and  sky.  Then,  far  off,  a  tree  grew  up 
before  my  eyes,  slowly  at  first,  but  with  increasing  rapidity 
until  its  foliage  filled  the  sky  and  shut  out  the  sun — the 
leaves  were  stripped  by  the  storm — the  tree  was  bare  and 
dead — it  changed  into  the  skeleton  of  a  giant !  Then  the 
waves  of  the  sea  commenced  rolling  towards  me  over  the 
plain.  They  came  nearer  and  nearer,  storm-driven,  until 
the  whole  plain  was  submerged,  and  dashed  higher  and 
higher  until  the  sky  seemed  to  be  the  object  of  their  wrath. 
The  waters  took  fire  and  burned  up.  Clouds  of  ashes 
filled  the  air,  and  scorched  and  suffocated  me.  The  ashes 
became  snow,  and  chilled  me  to  the  bones — the  flakes 
increased  in  size  and  were  turned  into  birds,  great  white 
birds  with  red  beaks  and  fiery  eyes  ;  they  circled  about 
me  in  myriads,  impatient  to  devour.  The  scene  changed. 
A  monstrous  black  eagle  was  rising  upward,  bearing  the 
sky  with  him  while  the  horizon  closed  in  around  me ; 
the  sky  became  a  bell — its  great  clapper  struck  against 
the  side  with  a  sound  like  the  '  crack  of  doom  ' — the 
door  of  my  room  was  burst  in,  and  I  was  half  recalled 
to  my  senses  by  the  appearance  of  a  man. 

Drink  this/   said  he,  pouring  a  dark  liquid   into  a 
glass.     '  It  won't  hurt  you  ;  it  is  only  cold  coffee.' 
"  I  obeyed  like  a  child. 


458  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  '  You  forgot  to  pay  me  for  that  morphine,  and,  as 
administrators  are  sometimes  troublesome,  I  thought  you 
might  prefer  to  settle  your  estate  to  that  extent,  and  I  've 
come  to  collect  the  bill.' 

"  I  threw  some  money  on  the  table,  and  exclaimed  : 
*  Now,  sir,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  interrup ' 

" '  Yes,  I  understand.  You  do  not  wish  to  be  inter- 
rupted in  the  last  act — the  dying  scene.  Young  man, 
there  was  a  mistake  in  the  bills  ;  that  act  won't  be  played 
to-night.  It  is  postponed  until  there  is  a  better  house. 
Lie  down  on  the  lounge  ;  it  will  be  more  comfortable, 
and  I  have  a  few  words  to  say  to  you  seriously.  Do  you 
think,'  he  went  on,  '  any  man  in  his  senses  would  sell  a 
stranger  five  grains  of  morphine  ?  I  had  noticed  you 
come  to  my  door  several  times,  and  always  in  the  evening. 
When  you  asked  me  for  five  grains  of  morphine,  I  knew 
what  it  meant.  If  I  had  refused  you,  you  might  have 
bought  a  pistol,  a  cord,  a  razor,  or  jumped  into  the  bay. 
I  thought  it  best  to  give  you  a  pretty  good  dose  of  mor- 
phine— as  much  as  you  could  safely  stand,  but  what  you 
have  taken  is  for  the  most  part  a  very  harmless  powder. 
You  will  hardly  be  the  worse  for  it  in  the  morning.  Drink 
some  more  coffee.  I  want  your  attention  to  what  I  am 
to  say.  This  suicidal  disease  is  very  apt  to  attack  men  of 
your  temperament  at  your  time  of  life.  The  reason  is 
that  at  that  age  they  begin  to  discover  that  neither  the 
world  nor  themselves  are  what  they  expected.  How 
either  is  to  be  benefited  by  the  proposed  remedy  they  do 
not  stop  to  inquire.  When  you  pass  twenty-five  you  will 
be  out  of  danger  of  a  recurrence  of  this  moral  malady. 
Now  I  want  you  to  try  a  psychological  experiment. 
Until  you  are  twenty-five,  consider  yourself  dead.  For- 
get yourself.  Care  for  no  humiliations,  count  nothing  a 
privation,  avoid  no  dangers  ;  do  whatever  you  find  in 
your  pathway,  without  any  regard  to  vanity,  comfort,  or 
advancement.     You  have  given  your  life  away,  and  need 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  459 

not  give  that  any  further  consideration.  Promise  me,  and  I 
will  not  call  the  doctor  and  his  stomach-pump.  If  it  is  a 
promise — drink  some  more  coffee — call  to  see  me  when 
you  are  twenty-five,  and  you  can  pay  me  then.' 

"  He  withdrew ;  and  I  was  resolved  to  try  the  experi- 
ment. 

"  I  did  not  find  life  a  great  battle,  where  I  could  make 
self-renunciation  a  grand  act  of  heroism.  On  the  contrary, 
it  was  a  very  tame  affair,  and  none  but  myself  were  aware 
of  the  sacrifices  I  made. 

"  There  were  urgent  reasons  why  I  should  find  immedi- 
ate employment.  I  accepted  the  first  that  was  offered  ; 
it  was  to  cull  a  lot  of  potatoes  on  the  wharf,  part  of  which 
were  spoiled.  Making  wages  beyond  a  living  no  object — 
I  did  not  after  that  lack  work.  I  was  on  the  water  front 
for  more  than  a  year,  assisting  to  load  and  unload  vessels, 
doing  odd  jobs  at  the  grain  and  vegetable  stores,  but 
refusing  to  make  any  long  engagement,  or  to  do  any  light 
work  which  would  necessarily  bring  me  into  any  kind  of 
social  relations.  I  slept  in  a  sail-loft,  and  ate  with  the 
sailors,  stevedores,  and  'longshoremen  at  the  open  bars 
about  the  wharves.  Never  speaking,  except  when  neces- 
sary, I  at  length — I  know  not  how — came  to  be  known 
as  the  '  Dead  Man.'  I  accepted  the  soubriquet,  and 
adopted  Dedman  as  my  name.  As  anxious  to  avoid  inter- 
course with  myself  as  with  others,  I  was  never  idle  when 
awake.  An  occasional  long  walk  on  a  Sunday  afternoon 
was  the  only  thing  like  recreation  I  allowed  myself.  The 
months  went  on  ;  I  scarcely  counted  them. 

"  I  had  been  in  this  service  more  than  a  year,  however, 
when  '  destiny '  played  a  card  that  changed  the  tenor  of 
my  life. 

"  Walking  one  Sunday  evening  along  Meiggs'  wharf, 
near  the  end  I  observed  a  nurse  with  a  little  girl  four  or 
five  years  old.  A  moment  after  I  heard  a  scream,  turned, 
and  saw  that  the  child  had  fallen  into  the  bay.     Instantly 


460  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

throwing  off  hat  and  coat,  I  jumped  in,  and,  being  a 
good  swimmer,  succeeded  without  much  difficulty  in 
catching  the  child,  and  holding  on  to  one  of  the  piles  until 
we  were  taken  off  by  a  small  boat  that  came  to  my  assist- 
ance. With  the  instinct  of  the  drowning,  the  child  clung 
around  my  neck  even  after  we  were  in  the  boat,  and  as  I 
loosened  her  little  hands  I  impulsively  kissed  her.  A 
crowd  of  people  gathered  round  the  nurse,  and,  anxious 
to  avoid  observation,  I  hurried  away.  I  seldom  read  the 
newspapers,  but  did  the  next  day,  curious  to  see  whose 
child  I  had  rescued.  I  found  the  item  giving  the  account 
of  the  accident,  and  it  contained  a  request  '  that  the  man 

who  saved  the  child  would  call  upon  the  father,  at , 

or  send  his  address.' 

"  I  had  no  intention  of  doing  either ;  but  cut  the  slip 
from  the  paper  without  conscious  motive — as  we  are  apt 
to  act  when  fate  takes  the  wheel.  For  the  following  week 
I  felt  a  strange,  unaccountable  yearning  to  see  the  child 
whose  life  I  had  saved.  Against  my  determination  a  living 
object  had  forced  its  way  into  my  heart.  I  yielded  to 
this  yearning  far  enough  to  do  a  foolish  thing.  I  wrote 
to  the  father,  saying  that  I  desired  to  remain  unknown  ; 
but  asking  him  to  do  me  the  favor  to  send  me  through  a 
fictitious  address  one  of  the  child's  curls.  It  was  a  boyish, 
simple  thing  to  do,  but  I  now  think  not  unnatural.  The 
answer  soon  came,  and  it  stung  me  to  the  soul.  It  was 
freezingly  polite,  and  contained  a  check  l  to  bearer '  for 
one  hundred  dollars.  I  could  read  between  the  lines, 
plainly  as  though  it  were  written  in  words,  that  the  writer 
supposed  I  was  a  social  or  criminal  outlaw,  who  wished 
to  preserve  an  incognito,  and  who  desired  the  lock  of  hair 
to  identify  himself  at  some  future  time,  when  he  could 
ask  a  favor  which  it  might  be  inconvenient  to  grant.  I 
burned  the  check ;  and  in  a  sleepless  night  made  two  or 
three  discoveries  :  Self-renunciation  did  not  consist  in 
hiding  from  one's  self ;  I  had  not  lost   the   impulses  of 


MA  GA  ZINE  S—JO  URN  A  L  S.  46 1 

affection,  or  the  sensibility  of  pride ;  I  could  love,  and  I 
could  suffer. 

"  The  most  virulent  form  of  small-pox  prevailed  in  the 
city  to  an  extent  that  created  almost  a  panic.  On  the 
next  day  I  offered  my  services  to  the  authorities  as  a 
nurse  at  the  pest-house.  They  were  accepted,  and  for 
three  months  I  was  constantly  associated  with  sickness 
and  death  in  their  most  loathsome  forms.  Caring  noth- 
ing for  life,  I  did  not  catch  the  infection  ;  but  in  seeking 
to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  others,  for  a  time  I  forgot 
myself.  The  pestilence  at  length  abated.  Among  the 
last  patients  in  my  ward  was  a  miner,  who,  still  weak  and 
suffering  at  the  time  of  his  discharge,  entreated  me  to  go 
home  with  him.  He  was  almost  childish  in  his  weakness, 
and  I  went  with  him  to  his  cabin  in  the  mountains.  He 
rapidly  recovered  his  strength,  and  I  found  him  a  man  of 
coarse  but  kindly  nature;  honest,  poor,  and  a  bachelor. 
At  his  suggestion  we  became  mining  partners.  For 
many  months  we  prospected  and  worked  with  varying 
success,  but  did  not  average  more  than  wages.  We 
moved  from  place  to  place,  and  at  last,  in  a  locality 
which  I  had  christened  '  Dead  Man's  Gulch,'  we  opened 
a  claim  which  paid  us  well,  and  which  in  a  few  months 
we  sold  for  a  handsome  fortune. 

"  I  was  twenty-five.  Life  was  no  longer  a  burden 
which  I  desired  to  lay  down,  but  I  feared  I  had  lost  all 
zest  for  its  enjoyment.  I  sought  my  friend  the  druggist. 
He  advised  me  to  travel  for  a  few  years,  until  I  had  seen 
every  portion  of  the  civilized  world.  I  have  done  so.  I 
am  here.  Until  now  I  did  not  know  why  I  did  not  leave 
London  a  fortnight  ago." 

As  I  finished  I  arose,  walked  to  the  table,  took  up  the 
smaller  glass  of  wine  and  carried  it  toward  my  lips. 

Helena  sprang  forward  to  catch  my  arm,  and  I  threw 
the  glass  upon  the  floor. 

With  a  sigh  that  might  have  been  of  relief  or  of  agony, 


462  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

she  threw  herself  upon  her  face  on  the  lounge,  her  whole 
body  quivering  with  emotion.  At  length  I  raised  her  up, 
saw  that  her  face  was  wet  with  tears,  and  felt  that  she 
was  saved — I  knew  not  from  what. 

I  walked  mechanically  to  the  reversed  painting  and 
turned  it  toward  the  light.  I  expected  to  see  the  por- 
trait of  a  lover,  or  a  father  or  mother,  probably  a  home- 
stead in  an  English  landscape. 

It  was  a  Newfoundland  dog  ! 

I  came  back,  and  leaned  over  her,  with  a  kiss  upon  my 
lips.     She  drew  backward,  saying:  "  Never  AGAIN." 

"  Then,"  said  I,  "  must  I  say  good-bye  ?" 

"  Yes,"  she  answered,  "  you  must  say  good-bye.  I  do 
not  know  whether  the  fate  that  brought  us  together  was 
kindly  or  not.  You  can  do  me  a  personal  favor.  Will 
you  ?     It  is  simple." 

"I  will." 

"  Promise  me  never  to  seek  to  know  who  I  am,  or 
where  you  now  are." 

"  You  do  not  know  how  much  you  ask  of  me." 

"You  do  not  know  how  much  it  will  be  to  me." 

"I  promise." 

Taking  a  sealed  envelope  from  her  bosom,  she  said : 
"  Please  take  this,  but  do  not  open  it  until  you  have  left 
England.     Good-bye  !  " 

The  door  closed  upon  me. 

The  morning  twilight  comes  very  early  in  London  in 
June,  and  it  was  quite  light.  Far  off  I  heard  the  chimes, 
and  nearer  a  clock  struck  four.  It  was  a  long  ride  to 
Pimlico,  where  I  lodged,  and  before  I  reached  my  rooms  I 
had  determined  to  leave  London  that  very  morning.  I 
took  the  7  o'clock  train  for  Dover ;  at  noon  I  was  half- 
way across  the  Channel.  I  had  left  England.  Standing 
on  deck  by  the  taffrail  I  opened  the  envelope.  It  con- 
tained a  sheet  of  paper  and  a  plain  gold  ring.  Within 
the  ring  was  inscribed  :  "  R.  C.  to  S.  O.  Mar.  2."     Scarcely 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  463 

legible,  in  pencil,  on  the  paper  were  the  words  :  "  This  is 
to  be  buried  with  me." 

"  It  shall  be  !  "  I  exclaimed  half  aloud.  "  You  are 
dead  to  me,  and  must  be  buried  from  my  sight,"  and  I 
dropped  it  into  the  sea. 

Next  morning,  as  I  came  out  of  my  old  rooms  into  the 
open  court,  in  "  the  Latin  quarter  "  of  Paris,  charming 
little  Adele  rushed  up  to  me,  took  me  by  both  hands,  and 
exclaimed  in  her  sweetest  French  : 

"  Monsieur  Redbeard,  have  you  come  back  at  last  ? 
How  pale  you  look — have  you  been  ill  ?  " 

August  15,  1874. 

AFTER  DARK. 

We  had  been  speaking — the  Captain,  Don  Mateo,  and 
I — of  the  recent  manifestations  at  Stockton,  which  Elder 
Knapp  with  pious  credulity  attributed  to  the  direct 
agency,  to  the  immediate  personal  presence,  in  fact,  of 
his  old  enemy,  the  devil.  The  Don,  who  is  not  a  Don  by 
birth  like  Don  Quixote  or  Don  Juan,  nor  by  christening 
like  General  Don  Carlos  Buell  or  Don  Piatt,  but  by 
courtesy  from  long  residence  among  the  South  American 
Spaniards,  insisted  that  this  theory  of  demonology  was 
the  worst  that  could  be  offered  for  the  solution  of  a 
mystery  that  neither  our  faith  nor  our  happiness  requires 
us  to  solve  at  all.  The  idea  of  a  corporeal  devil  on  earth, 
not  in  human  flesh,  was  as  repugnant  to  him  as  the  in- 
spiration of  disordered  nerves,  the  evolving  of  a  new 
religion  by  hypnotism,  or  the  communion  of  disembodied 
spirits  through  dancing  tables  or  pirouetting  planchettes. 
"  If,"  he  concluded,  "  the  enemy  of  souls  can  thrust  us 
from  our  stools,  and  take  his  seat  at  our  feasts  and  fire- 
sides, an  unbidden  guest,  our  monuments  may  be  indeed 
the  maws  of  kites — the  sooner  the  better." 

I  suggested  that  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than 


464  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

the  explanation  offered  for  the  particular  fact  in  hand. 
The  devil,  after  brooding  for  nearly  four  hundred  years 
over  the  insult  he  received  when  Luther  threw  his  ink- 
stand at  him,  returned  to  earth,  retorted  the  indignity  by 
throwing  a  spittoon  at  one  of  the  cloth,  and  that  his  debt 
being  acquitted,  he  would  doubtless  be  content  to  remain 
hereafter  within  the  bounds  of  his  own  parish. 

"  Your  remark  savors  of  impiety,"  said  the  Don. 

"  And  is  disrespectful  to  the  devil,"  added  the  Captain. 
"  One  '  must  not  calumniate  even  the  devil  or  the  inquisi- 
tion,' you  know.  Think  of  the  imperial  Satan  of  Milton, 
the  accomplished  Mephistopheles  of  Goethe,  playing  fan- 
tastic tricks  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  would  have 
disgraced  the  temple  of  St.  Anthony  in  the  third. 
Bunyan  was  literal  enough,  but  Apollyon  never  would 
have  tried  to  keep  Christian  from  the  celestial  city  by 
throwing  a  spittoon  at  his  head." 

The  Don  looked  at  his  watch — he  always  does,  as  if  to 
time  himself,  when  about  to  claim  the  conversational 
floor — wiped  his  glasses — his  invariable  prelude  to  a 
pathetic  strain,  as  though  he  would  dry  the  prophetic 
moisture  of  a  tear  unshed — and  without  interruption, 
said: 

"  I  admit  that  this  is  the  most  gross  and  sensuous  sign 
of  the  outlying  world  that  ever  was  given  to  a  wicked  and 
perverse  generation,  but  we  must  not  go  too  far  and  take 
our  seats  among  the  scoffers.  These  are  mysteries  which 
it  is  alike  irreverent  to  question  and  irrational  to  deny — 
shadows  of  objects  unseen  that  cross  the  domain  of  sense, 
but  do  not  belong  to  it,  and  are  not  amenable  to  its  laws. 
The  dry  light  of  intellect  illumines  but  a  narrow  circle  of 
reason,  and  his  life  is  close  walled  in  who  has  no  appre- 
hensions beyond  it.  There  are  few  so  unhappy  as  to  be 
free  from  superstition,  and  they  are  alike  destitute  of  faith 
and  spiritual  sight.  That  existence  is  barren  indeed  which 
has  no  experiences  that  do  not  transcend  the  inductive 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  465 

philosophy.  With  your  permission  I  will  relate  an  experi- 
ence of  my  own,  which  I  have  never  before  mentioned, 
except  to  the  few  parties  who  will  appear  in  and  are  a 
part  of  the  narrative,  and  which,  I  assure  you,  is  religiously 
true. 

"  When  I  was  a  young  man  I  passed  through  a  struggle 
that  exhausted  all  the  strength  of  my  manhood,  and  in 
which  I  was  vanquished.  Wanting  nothing  so  much  as 
rest  and  absence  from  painful  associations,  I  took  passage 
on  the  first  vessel  that  was  to  sail  from  Baltimore — care- 
less of  destination — landed  at  Rio,  and  drifted  to  Caracas, 
where  I  remained  until  I  came  to  California.  I  was  poor, 
and  failing  to  find  the  traditional  treasure  buried  in  the 
ruins  of  the  old  city  destroyed  by  the  earthquake,  I  en- 
gaged in  the  business  of  baking.  That,  at  least,  would 
supply  me  with  daily  bread.  My  housekeeper  was  a 
widow  who  had  lost  her  husband  in  the  civil  wars  that 
had  raged  so  constantly  in  Venezuela  as  to  make  the 
population  between  the  sexes  five  men  to  thirteen  women. 
She  had  one  child,  a  little  girl  about  five  years  old,  whom 
she  called  Angela.  Angela  was  a  child  to  nestle  in  any 
one's  heart.  She  was  at  once  the  most  joyous  and  play- 
ful, the  most  thoughtful  and  affectionate  little  creature 
I  ever  knew.  Her  presence  was  the  very  cordial  my  soul 
needed,  bringing  rest  and  forgetfulness.  For  five  years 
we  were  companions — playmates.  I  taught  her  to  speak 
English,  and  from  her  prattle  I  learned  Spanish.  Every 
one  loved  her  and  seemed  to  mingle  reverence  with  love. 
It  was  my  custom  to  bake  a  basketful  of  cakes  to  dis- 
tribute to  the  beggars  on  feast-days ;  Angela  was  my 
almoner,  and  the  poor  souls  who  received  her  bounty 
would  kiss  her  hands  and  call  her  their  '  dear  angel ' — 
their  '  blessed  little  mother.' 

"  Her  hair,  black  and  silken,  reached  to  her  waist,  and 
I  would  often  playfully  torment  her  for  one  of  her  curls, 
which  she  half  playfully,  half  wilfully  refused,  hiding  her- 


466  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

self,  or  running  through  and  on  top  of  the  house  to  avoid 
my  threat  to  take  it  by  force.  One  day,  the  next  after  a 
long  romp  of  this  kind,  she  came  stealthily  into  my  room 
with  the  first  sad  expression  I  had  ever  seen  upon  her 
face,  and  handing  me  a  long  curl  she  had  cut  from  her 
hair,  said  :  *  Don  Mateo,  here  is  a  piece  of  my  hair  ;  I  want 
you  to  keep  it  when  I  am  dead — but  don't  tell  mother.' 
I  had  often  wondered  who  would  protect  Angela  when 
she  lost  me ;  it  had  never  before  occurred  to  me  that  I 
might  lose  her.  In  that  instant  I  felt  that  I  must ;  that 
her  words  were  prophetic,  and  that  she  was  more  neces- 
sary to  me  than  I  to  her.  I  could  only  stammer,  '  Why, 
Angela — why  do  you  speak  so  ?  '  and  she,  answering  only 
'  Don't  tell  mother,'  left  the  room. 

"  For  a  few  days,  though  she  was  well  and  happy  as 
ever,  I  lived  in  constant  dread  of  her  death.  But  my  sad 
impression  gradually  yielded  to  her  gayety,  and  after  a 
week  or  two  if  I  thought  of  the  circumstance  it  was  with 
the  reflection  that  Angela  could  not  always  be  a  child, 
and  that  the  first  shadow  of  humanity — the  sense  of 
mortality — had  fallen  upon  her  path.  A  month  had  not 
gone,  however,  before  she  was  stricken  with  a  malignant 
fever :  then  my  foreboding  returned ;  in  a  few  days  it 
was  realized — Angela  was  dead. 

"  We  buried  her  at  sunset  on  the  third  day  after  her 
death.  When  we  were  returning  from  the  grave  the  city 
was  shaken  by  an  earthquake  different  from  any  other  I 
have  ever  witnessed.  It  seemed  as  if  an  immense  mass 
were  detached  from  the  interior  of  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  falling  with  an  awful  concussion  into  a  subterraneous 
cavern. 

"  The  beggars  had  lost  their  '  dear  angel — their  blessed 
little  mother.' 

"  I  never  knew  how  large  a  place  Angela  filled  in  my 
heart  until  it  was  made  void.  The  tie  that  bound  me  to 
existence  and  reconciled  me  to  it,  had   grown  strong  so 


MA  GA  Z1NES—J0  URN  A  L  S.  467 

silently  I  knew  not  how  strong  it  was  until  broken.  The 
music  and  sunshine  of  my  life  were  gone. 

"  As  I  had  sought  rest  in  Caracas,  I  now  realized  that  I 
must  live  in  a  deepening  shadow,  or  give  my  future  an 
aim,  and  fill  it  with  activity  and  occupation.  It  was  in  the 
first  flush  of  the  news  of  the  gold  discoveries  in  California 
and  I  determined  to  go  to  Rio,  take  passage  for  San 
Francisco  as  soon  as  opportunity  should  offer,  and  join 
in  the  race  of  fortune  and  adventure. 

"About  two  years  before,  my  nephew  and  his  wife, 
from  Baltimore,  had  made  me  a  visit  and  remained  some 
months  in  Caracas.  They  were  childless,  and  became 
greatly  attached  to  Angela,  whom  they  desired  to  adopt 
and  take  with  them  to  their  home.  Neither  her  mother 
nor  the  priest  would  consent,  however,  and  I  was  too 
selfish  to  add  my  persuasions  to  theirs. 

"  My  preparations  for  leaving  Caracas  were  nearly  com- 
pleted, when  I  received  a  letter  from  my  niece  in  Balti- 
more, in  which  were  these  words  : 

"  '  Do  write  immediately,  and  tell  us  if  anything  has 
happened  to  Angela.  To-day,  while  we  were  at  dinner, 
George  suddenly  turned  pale,  and  upon  my  asking  him 
the  matter,  he  exclaimed,  "  Don't  you  see  Angela  looking 
in  at  the  window  ?  "  ' 

"  I  glanced  again  at  the  date  of  the  letter — I  knew  the 
hour  at  which  they  dined — it  was  the  day  and  the  hour 
Angela  died. 

"  When  I  told  her  mother  she  only  said,  and  without 
the  least  apparent  surprise :  '  The  poor,  dear  child — to 
think  she  would  go  so  far  to  tell  George  she  was  dead.'  ** 

The  Don  had  a  faculty  of  sitting  by  one's  side  and  lis- 
tening as  from  a  distance,  with  the  power  of  translating 
himself  into  or  out  of  the  conversation  at  will.  He  often 
seems  to  regard  his  companions  through  a  reversed  mental 
telescope,  the  focus  of  which  he  changes  and  adjusts  to 
suit  the  humor  of  the  moment.     As  he  finished  his  story, 


468  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

which  he  had  told  rather  as  thinking  aloud  than  speaking 
to  us,  he  fell  into  a  reverie  ;  and  if  he  remained  conscious 
of  our  presence  at  all,  he  did  not  give  attention  enough 
to  the  Captain's  narration  to  show  any  impatience  at  my 
occasional  interruptions.  The  Captain  is  a  Pole,  expa- 
triated for  his  part  in  the  revolution  of  1830.  Having 
no  longer  a  country,  he  is  thoroughly  cosmopolitan.  He 
speaks  English  with  a  French  idiom  and  a  slight  accent 
that  I  can  no  more  transfer  to  paper,  than  I  could  the 
tones  of  his  voice,  or  the  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  and  I  will 
not  belittle  his  intellect  by  clothing  his  language  in  the 
rags  of  bad  spelling. 

"  That  is  hardly  to  be  accounted  for,  Captain,  by  the 
doctrine  of  subjective  apparitions  and  remarkable  coin- 
cidences," said  I,  to  break  the  silence. 

u  No,  nor  upon  any  theory  of  psychology,  magnetism, 
or  electricity — words  which  we  use  to  cover  a  multitude 
of  ignorances." 

"  When  these  will  not  suffice  we  can  eke  them  out 
with  '  mesmerism.'  " 

"  Precisely.  I  read  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
only  a  few  days  ago  '  that  Mickiewicz,  some  years  before 
he  was  elected  professor  of  the  Sclavonic  languages  and 
literature  in  the  College  of  France  in  1840,  had  fallen 
under  the  influence  of  a  religious  charlatan  named  Tow- 
ianski,  who  had  persuaded  him  he  had  cured  Madame 
Mickiewicz  of  a  mental  insanity  by  means  of  mesmerism.' 
That  is  the  method  which  modern  history  and  science 
have  of  bolting  facts  they  cannot  assimilate.  Madame 
Mickiewicz  told  me  herself  that  Towianski  did  restore  her 
from  hopeless  insanity,  and  that,  whatever  the  world 
might  say  of  him,  he  had  been  to  her  a  savior.  Towian- 
ski was  no  charlatan,  and  if  Mickiewicz  yielded  to  a 
delusion,  it  was  one  that  might  have  had  more  influence 
over  a  strong  mind  than  a  weak  one.  Denial,  the  refuge 
of  the  weak,  is  not  always  open  to  the  strong  and  candid." 


MA  GA  ZINE  S—JO  URN  A  L  S.  469 

"  Did  you  knowMickiewicz,  the  Polish  Byron,  Captain?" 
"  We  prefer  to  call  him  the  '  Dante  of  the  North/  but 
neither  expression  is  apt,  for  genius  has  no  parallels.     I 
knew  him  as  a  young  man  just  entering  life  might  know 
one  already  famous,  for  whom  he  feels  an  admiration  that 
borders  upon  reverence.     The  first  time  I  met  Mickiewicz 
was  at  a  soirie  in  Paris.     It  must  have  been  as  early  as 
1835.     Gurowski  and  Chopin  were  also  there." 
"  I  wish  I  had  your  reminiscences." 
"  I  would  gladly  exchange  them  for  your  youth." 
"  Was  that  the  same  Gurowski  who  was  in  the  United 
States  during  the  war,  and  whose  criticisms  upon  some  of 
our  Generals  and  public  men  were  so  sharp?" 

"  The  same.  He  was  a  man  of  great  ability  and  strong 
prejudices.  Most  of  the  leaders  of  the  Polish  patriots 
were  aristocrats,  and  desired  to  establish  an  aristocratic 
national  government.  Gurowski,  though  of  noble  birth, 
was  a  radical  democrat  of  the  red  republican  school. 
Like  many  others,  however,  extremely  democratic  in 
theory,  in  society  he  was  an  autocrat,  the  infirmity  of  his 
temper  making  him  impatient  of  contradiction  and  in- 
tolerant of  difference.  A  careless,  apparently  thoughtless 
man,  he  was  leonine  when  aroused." 
"And  you  have  heard  Chopin  play?" 
"  Often.  To  fully  appreciate  Chopin's  music,  one 
should  have  been  an  artist  and  a  Pole.  He  had  but  one 
sentiment  outside  his  art — and  that  was  Poland — until  he 
met  George  Sand.  Like  him,  she  was  an  artist ;  but, 
unlike  his,  her  art  included  everything,  even  loving. 
She  was  to  him  a  passion  ;  he  to  her  a  plaything.  No 
wonder  she  grew  wearied,  for  he  was  jealous  of  the  very 
flowers  and  birds  she  caressed.     Byron's — 

'  Man's  love  is  of  man's  life  a  thing  apart, 
'T  is  woman's  whole  existence,' 

was  reversed  in  this  instance,  and  Chopin  did  not  have 
the  poor  resource  '  to  love  again,  and  be  again  undone.' " 


470  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  Have  you  read  Liszt's  life  of  Chopin  ?" 

"  Yes.  Such  candid  sweetness,  such  drippings  of  honey 
— it  ought  to  have  been  written  by  a  woman.  But  Liszt 
has  since  become  an  abbe ;  and  according  to  the  French, 
men,  women,  and  priests  constitute  the  three  sexes  of 
humanity.  Liszt  dates  Chopin's  death  from  his  separa- 
tion from  George  Sand,  and  keeps  him  dying  through 
three  years  and  twenty-five  pages.  If  Charles  II.  thought 
politeness  required  him  to  apologize  to  his  courtiers  for 
detaining  them  so  long  in  dying,  Liszt  certainly  owes  his 
readers  a  similar  apology  in  behalf  of  Chopin.  After  the 
quarrel  Chopin  continued  to  teach  music  at  twenty-five 
francs  a  lesson  (an  extravagant  price  at  that  time),  and 
upon  one  occasion  was  human  enough,  on  being  urged  to 
play  at  a  party  soon  after  he  had  entered  the  salon,  to 
astonish  his  hostess  by  declining  '  to  pay  for  his  supper  in 
advance.'  It  was  during  his  bright  days  that  I  first  saw 
him.  At  that  party  there  was  great  curiosity  to  hear 
Mickiewicz  improvise.  He  declined,  and  his  friends  were 
too  polite  to  press  him.  I  do  not  know,  indeed,  if  he 
could  exercise  his  gift  at  pleasure.  Chopin  seated  himself 
carelessly  at  the  piano,  and  touching  the  keys  as  if  at 
random  (what  a  touch  he  had — the  keys  seemed  to  live 
beneath  his  fingers)  commenced  playing  Polish  national 
airs,  his  own  Polonaise  and  Mazourkas.  Gradually 
Mickiewicz  drew  within  the  charmed  circle  and  began  to 
recite,  at  first  slowly  and  in  a  low  voice,  but  soon  with 
great  rapidity  and  animation,  what  seemed  to  me  then 
living  poetry — poetry  on  fire.  For  an  hour  the  inspira- 
tion of  these  two  men  blended  in  one,  Chopin  keeping  up 
an  accompaniment  perfectly  en  rapport  with  the  poet. 
It  was  an  enchanted  hour.  No  one  spoke  or  moved, 
scarcely  breathed  for  fear  of  breaking  the  spell.  When 
they  ceased,  the  enthusiasm  broke  over  all  bounds  of 
fashion  and  decorum.  Alas  !  after  thirty-four  years,  I  am 
constrained  to  admit  that  I  can  remember  only  generally 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  47 1 

that  Mickiewicz's  theme  was  something  like  that  of  his 
dramatic  poem  '  Dziady ' — not  a  single  line  can  I  recall." 
"  This  was  before  Mickiewicz  met  Towianski  ?  " 
"  About  three  years  before.  I  left  Paris  soon  after- 
ward, and  never  saw  '  the  prophet.'  At  this  time  there 
were  a  great  many  Poles  in  Paris,  drawn  there  in  part  by 
the  attractions  of  the  gay  capital,  and  in  part  by  the  hope, 
encouraged  by  the  oracular  promises  of  Louis  Philippe, 
that  the  French  Government  would  espouse  the  cause  of 
Polish  independence.  It  was  a  mere  game  of  diplomacy, 
however,  and  the  Polish  pawns  were  swept  from  the 
board.  Living  in  the  uncertain  favor  of  a  Prince,  alter- 
nately elated  and  depressed,  without  home  associations, 
without  a  country,  without  a  future,  is  it  any  wonder  that 
many  of  my  poor  fellow-exiles  sought  to  forget  the  past 
and  themselves  in  frivolities,  follies,  and  dissipations  ?  One 
of  them,  less  mercurial  than  most  of  his  companions,  ob- 
tained employment  as  corresponding  clerk  in  a  bank  at 
Strasbourg,  where  he  married,  and,  I  believe,  still  lives.  I 
cannot  recall  his  name,  but  I  have  met  him —  *  his  word 
is  good  upon  'Change'  —  and  I  had  from  his  own  lips 
that  for  three  successive  nights — it  was  in  1838,  I  think — 
he  dreamed  that  he  was  upon  the  bridge  over  the  Rhine 
at  sunset  and  saw  approaching  him  an  old-fashioned 
Polish  wagon,  or  bryczka,  drawn  by  four  horses  abreast, 
driven  by  a  man  dressed  in  a  costume  of  skin  and  furs, 
such  as  could  sometimes  be  seen  in  the  remote  provinces 
of  Poland.  The  first  morning  after  the  dream  it  seemed 
strangely  vivid  ;  the  second,  the  coincidence  troubled  him  ; 
the  third,  he  accepted  it  as  a  direction — went  down  to 
the  bridge  at  sunset,  where  everything  fell  out  as  it  had 
in  his  dream.  The  driver,  who  was  Towianski,  accosted 
him  as  though  expecting  him,  saying  he  wanted  money 
to  pay  his  expenses  to  Paris ;  that  he  was  the  prophet  of 
Santa  Maria  of  Ostrobramska,  (literally,  '  sharp-door,' 
from  the  peculiar  shape  of  the  entrance  to  a  church  in 


472  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

Wilna,  where  the  prophet  had  lived)  and  that  he  had 
been  commanded  in  a  miraculous  vision  by  his  patroness 
saint  to  go  to  Paris  to  preach  the  deliverance  of  Poland. 
The  means  for  the  journey  were  provided,  and  the  follow- 
ing morning  the  prophet  proceeded  on  his  way.  When  he 
reached  Paris  he  drove  directly  to  the  house  of  Mickie- 
wicz,  and  forcing  himself  into  the  presence  of  the  poet 
proclaimed  his  mission.  Of  course  Mickiewicz  supposed 
him  to  be  crazy,  but  he  had  too  recently  suffered  in  his  own 
heart  and  home  to  treat  him  otherwise  than  kindly,  and 
he  was  startled  when  Towianski  said  :  '  I  know  your 
thought — you  believe  me  mad.  It  is  permitted  me  to  give 
you  a  sign  of  my  messiahship.  Your  wife  is  insane,  and 
you  have  no  hope  of  her  recovery.  Go  with  me  to  the 
hotel  des  alie'ne's  at  Charenton.  I  will  restore  her  instantly 
to  reason.' 

"  No  wonder  Mickiewicz  was  startled.  Only  a  few  of 
his  most  intimate  friends  knew  that  his  wife's  malady  had 
assumed  that  melancholy  form,  and  that  she  was  confined 
in  the  asylum  the  prophet  had  mentioned.  He  yielded 
at  once  to  the  demand,  possibly  thinking  that  the  asylum 
was  of  all  others  the  most  suitable  place  to  which  he 
could  conduct  this  strange  visitor. 

"  Soiled  with  travel,  in  his  uncouth  garb,  with  his  singu- 
lar establishment,  an  entire  stranger  in  Paris,  Towianski, 
without  taking  a  word  of  direction,  drove  to  the  asylum, 
and,  in  his  character  of  prophet,  demanded  to  see  Mad- 
ame Mickiewicz.  Esquirol,  the  doctor  in  charge,  like 
most  physicians — I  mean  French  physicians  who  grew  up 
in  the  traditions  of  the  eighteenth  century — was  a  ma- 
terialist, did  not  believe  in  God  or  devil  "  (the  Captain  evi- 
dently considered  the  latter  the  more  dangerous  heresy) 
"  and  rejected  all  idea  of  miracles,  past  or  present.  Had 
he  been  at  the  asylum,  it  is  quite  possible  Towianski 
would  have  been  restrained  as  a  patient  rather  than  re- 
ceived as  a  prophet,  but  he  was  not ;    and  the  assistant 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  473 

consented  that  the  interview  might  take  place,  if  the 
prophet  could,  as  he  proposed,  go  directly  to  the  room 
of  the  poet's  wife  without  a  guide.  Towianski,  without 
hesitation,  led  the  way  through  the  long  and  intricate 
halls  to  the  room  where  Madame  Mickiewicz  was  con- 
fined, in  the  ward  of  hopeless  and  dangerous  patients. 
She  did  not  know  her  husband,  and  was  at  once  terrified 
and  infuriated  by  the  intrusion.  Towianski  ordered  the 
attendants  to  release  her  from  all  restraint,  and,  placing 
his  hand  upon  her  head,  commanded  the  demon,  in  the 
name  of  Santa  Maria  of  Ostrobramska,  to  depart.  The 
poor  lady  became  quiet,  and  fell  at  the  feet  of  the 
prophet.  Her  overfraught  brain  found  relief  in  tears 
and  sobs.  She  arose,  threw  herself  into  the  arms  of  her 
husband,  '  and  was  whole  from  that  hour.' 

"  Did  the -demon  thus  exorcised  take  possession  of  her 
husband  ?  By  the  verdict  of  common  sense,  he  became 
insane  from  the  time  his  wife  was  restored.  The  prophet 
had  given  him  back  his  wife,  and  he  at  once  accepted  it 
as  a  token  that  he  could  also  give  him  back  his  country. 

"  If  it  be  true  that,  like  individuals,  communities  may 
become  crazy,  never  was  one  better  prepared  to  receive 
the  contagion  than  the  Polish  society  in  Paris,  which  for 
years  had  vibrated  between  hope  and  despair,  and  was 
bound  together  as  one  man  by  a  common  sentiment. 

"  The  prophet  immediately  called  a  meeting  of  Poles  at 
the  Notre  Dame.  Three  converts  joined  him  in  com- 
munion. After  mass,  when  the  priests  had  left  the 
church,  he  addressed  the  meeting,  recounting  his  miracu- 
lous vision,  the  supernatural  cure  of  Madame  Mickiewicz, 
exhorting  the  Poles  to  lives  of  holiness,  and  promising 
the  deliverance  of  their  country  as  the  reward  of  their 
righteousness  and  patriotism.  The  beadles  tried  in  vain 
to  restrain  him.  That  day  a  society  of  forty  persons  was 
organized,  which  increased  within  a  year  to  nearly  five 
hundred.     Carl  Roycki,  the  idol  of  the  young  officers,  was 


474  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

nominated  the  General-in-Chief  of  the  new  crusade,  which 
a  higher  power  than  the  French  Government  was  to 
crown  with  success.  The  prophet  exercised  a  wonderful 
power  over  the  morals,  and  a  strange  spell  over  the  minds 
of  his  followers.  They  yielded  implicit  obedience  to  his 
maxims  of  temperance  and  self-denial ;  many  of  them 
married  their  mistresses,  and  all  of  their  worldly  goods 
was  held  as  common  property.  He  preached  the  doc- 
trine of  metempsychosis  ;  and  Kominsky,  the  Colonel  of 
my  regiment,  as  brave  a  man  as  ever  led  a  forlorn  hope, 
fancied  he  could  remember  when  he  was  a  cow  !  His 
wife  went  to  the  prophet  and  his  companions,  and 
besought  them  to  deliver  her  husband  from  this  midsum- 
mer madness,  but  they  were  all  as  mad  as  he. 

"  It  would  have  been  interesting  to  know  how  long  this 
glamour  could  have  been  continued  among  men  of  the 
world,  many  of  them  learned  and  accomplished ;  but  it 
was  brought  to  a  sudden  close  by  the  banishment  of  their 
leader  from  France.  He  had  been  in  Paris  about  a  year, 
when  he  appeared  at  the  palace  and  demanded  admission 
to  the  King.  He  was  turned  away.  The  next  day  he 
returned,  and  was  again  driven  away,  with  the  threat 
of  imprisonment.  On  the  third  day  he  came  again, 
denounced  the  French  Government  for  double  dealing 
with  Poland,  predicted  the  overthrow  of  the  house  of 
Orleans,  and  also,  it  is  said,  the  violent  death  of  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  heir-apparent  to  the  throne,  which  occurred  a 
few  years  afterward.  Louis  Philippe  was  the  most  acces- 
sible of  monarchs  when  he  had  no  fear  of  assassination. 
He  could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  Towianski,  and  I 
have  always  believed  if  his  request  for  audience  had 
been  conveyed  to  the  King  it  would  have  been  granted ; 
but  it  was  not,  and,  after  the  malediction,  the  prophet 
was  sent  out  of  France.  The  society  he  had  formed 
was  gradually  broken  up,  and  most  of  its  members 
absorbed  in  the  great  currents  of  life.     My  old  Colonel 


MA  GA  ZINE  S—JO  URN  A  LS.  475 

recovered  from  the  hallucination  that  he  had  ever  chewed 
the  cud,  except  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancy.  The  spell 
upon  the  faculties  of  Mickiewicz  was  stronger.  He  inter- 
calated brilliant  lectures  on  Sclavonic  literature,  with  dis- 
sertations on  the  '  Worship  of  Napoleon,'  (in  the  reign  of 
Louis  Philippe !)  the  '  Messiahship  of  Towianski/  and 
finally  upon  '  Rats.'  He  was  permitted  to  retain  the 
nominal  professorship  for  some  years,  but  without  the 
privilege  of  lecturing.  After  the  ascension  to  the  throne 
of  Louis  Napoleon,  he  was  restored  to  Court  favor,  and, 
in  1855,  was  sent  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  the  East. 
He  died  in  November  of  that  year,  of  cholera,  at  Con- 
stantinople. 

"  About  three  years  after  the  banishment  of  the  prophet, 
I  visited  Paris,  and  even  then  I  found  some  of  my  old  com- 
panions so  deeply  impressed  and  so  fixed  in  the  faith  that  in 
some  mysterious  way  Towianski  would  prove  the  redeemer 
of  our  country,  that  I  verily  believe  I  was  only  saved  from 
sharing  their  infatuation  by  the  fact  that  I  had  incurred 
responsibilities  and  duties  that  divided  with  Poland  my 
thoughts,  my  cares,  and  my  love." 

The  Don  seemed  suddenly  to  bring  us  within  his  field 
of  vision,  and  said  : 

"  After  all,  the  world  would  be  poorer  without  enthusi- 
asm and  superstition." 

"  They  are  like  the  fire,"  replied  the  Captain,  lighting 
his  cigar  ;  "  good  servants,  but  bad  masters." 
August,  1869. 

SKETCH  OF  RUFUS  A.  LOCKWOOD 

IN   THE    "  OVERLAND  MONTHLY,"    MAY,    187O. 

During  the  term  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  in  December,  1855,  a  stranger  occupied  the  same 
seat  in  the  court-room  day  after  day,  until  his  presence 
became  almost  a  feature  of  the  place ;  and  even  the 
impassive  Taney  realized  there  was  a  new  fixed  object 


476  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

within  his  visual  horizon.  His  general  appearance  might 
have  been  catalogued  as  follows:  Height,  above 
medium  ;  figure,  large  and  ungainly ;  movements,  awk- 
ward ;  complexion,  sallow  and  tobacco-smoked ;  eyes, 
dark  and  deep,  with  dilating  pupils  edged  with  yellow — 
cat-eyes  in  the  dark ;  hair,  dark-brown,  sprinkled  with 
gray ;  head,  feet,  and  hands  large — the  left  hand  web- 
fingered  ;  features,  not  irregular,  but  without  play  or 
mobility,  with  a  fixed  expression  of  weariness ;  dress, 
careless,  almost  slovenly ;  age,  fifty  years,  bearing  the 
burden  of  four-score. 

Each  day,  from  the  opening  to  the  adjournment  of 
court,  he  gave  to  all  its  proceedings — to  its  mere  routine, 
to  the  driest  and  most  technical  argument,  to  the  most 
absurd  speech,  (and  speeches  were  made  there  that  would 
not  have  been  tolerated  in  the  Twelfth  District  Court, 
Pratt,  J.),  and  to  the  most  finished  and  cogent  reasoning 
— the  same  constant,  apathetic  attention.  The  last 
day  of  the  term  was  reached,  and  the  court  was  about  to 
adjourn,  when  the  stranger  arose,  and,  addressing  the 
court  with  a  trepidation  of  voice  and  manner  that  his 
will  barely  mastered,  said  he  had  travelled  six  thousand 
miles  to  argue  a  case  that  stood  next  upon  the  calendar; 
the  counsel  for  the  other  side  was  present,  and  anxious 
that  the  case  should  be  heard ;  if  it  went  over  to  the  next 
term,  it  would  involve  an  inconvenience  to  counsel  and 
expense  to  the  parties,  that  would  amount  almost  to  a 
denial  of  justice  ;  and,  under  the  circumstances,  he  felt  priv- 
ileged to  ask  the  court  to  sit  one  day  longer. 

After  a  brief  consultation  the  judges  acceded  to  the 
request ;  and  it  was  announced  that,  on  the  following  day, 
the  court  would  hear  the  arguments  in  the  case  of  Field 
against  Seabury. 

More  than  the  usual  number  of  spectators  were  present 
on  the  following  day ;  and  there  was  something  more 
than  curiosity  to  hear  this  lawyer,  who  had  often  been 


MA  GAZINES—JO  URNALS.  477 

heard  of,  but  never  before  heard  in  that  court.  The  con- 
sciousness of  this  curiosity  and  expectation  embarrassed 
him  in  the  opening  of  his  speech,  but  his  mind  fairly  in 
motion  soon  worked  itself  free,  and  his  phlegmatic  temper- 
ament glowed  to  its  core  with  flameless  heat.  For  two 
hours  he  held  the  undivided  attention  of  the  court  in  an 
argument  that  was  pure  law.  He  had  that  precision  of 
statement,  skill,  and  nicety  in  the  handling  of  legal  terms, 
which  modulate  the  very  tones  of  the  voice,  and  by  which 
lawyers  instinctively  measure  a  lawyer — that  readiness 
which  reveals  an  intellectual  training  that  has  become  a 
second  nature — that  self-contained  confidence  that  is 
based  on  the  broadest  preparation — the  logical  arrange- 
ment which  gives  the  assurance,  that  back  of  every  propo- 
sition is  a  solid  column  to  support  it  if  attacked — and 
that  strength  and  symmetry  of  expression  which  carry 
the  conviction,  that  behind  utterance  there  is  a  fulness  of 
knowledge  that  floods  every  sentence  with  meaning,  and 
an  unconscious  reserve  of  power  which  gives  to  every 
word  a  vital  force. 

Long  before  he  had  concluded,  it  was  known  to  all 
present  that  the  stranger  was  Rufus  A.  Lockwood,  of  San 
Francisco  ;  and  he  was  that  day,  in  the  estimation  of  at 
least  one  of  the  judges  who  heard  him,  the  equal  of  the 
best  lawyer  in  the  United  States. 

Though  this  was  his  first  (and  only)  appearance  in  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  his  brief  had  been  before 
the  court  in  the  case  of  the  Mariposa  Land  Grant  (Fre- 
mont's), had  gained  the  case,  and  been  closely  followed  in 
the  opinion.  In  examining  that  brief,  Caleb  Cushing — then 
Attorney-General — exclaimed,  in  admiration  of  its  legal 
learning  and  research,  "  Who  is  this  man  Lockwood  ?  " 

Who  was  he,  and  why  was  he  not  as  well  known  to  the 
profession  and  public  as  Choate,  Evarts,  O'Connor, 
Grimes,  Benjamin,  Reverdy  Johnson,  Stanton,  Ewing,  or 
Cushing  himself? 


478  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

The  story  of  his  life  would  answer  this  question ;  and 
if  it  could  be  fully  told,  with  the  long,  dark  struggle 
between  the  insanity  in  his  blood  and  the  spirit  it  almost 
"  o'er-crowed,"  would  be  as  full  of  tragic  interest  as  that  of 
CEdipus  or  Medea. 

He  was  born  in  181 1,  in  Stamford,  Connecticut,  and  his 
true  name  was  Jonathan  A.  Jessup.  At  eighteen  he  was 
a  student  in  Yale  College,  in  the  Junior  Class,  distin- 
guished among  his  fellows  for  his  proficiency  in  Latin 
and  pure  mathematics,  and  for  his  familiar  acquaintance 
with  English  classics.  In  the  midst  of  the  term,  for  some 
reason  known  only  to  himself,  without  the  consent  of  his 
friends,  he  left  college,  and  enlisted  as  a  sailor  on  a 
United  States  man-of-war.  In  his  first  cruise,  he  saw  one 
of  his  messmates  tied  up  and  flogged  for  a  trivial  fault. 
Outraged  by  the  injustice  of  the  punishment,  and  shocked 
by  its  brutality,  he  determined  to  desert ;  and  succeeded 
in  doing  so  when  his  vessel  returned  to  New  York,  after  a 
short  voyage  to  the  Bahamas.  He  changed  his  name  to 
Rufus  A.  Lockwood,  taking  his  mother's  family  name ; 
worked  his  way  to  Buffalo  on  the  Erie  Canal,  and  took 
passage  on  one  of  the  first  schooners  that  made  the  voy- 
age of  the  lakes,  to  Chicago. 

Chicago  then  (1830)  was  a  frontier  village,  the  solitude 
of  the  prairies  on  one  side  almost  as  unbroken  as  that  of 
the  lake  on  the  other.  Lockwood  arrived  there  bare- 
headed, without  money  or  friends.  A  farmer  from  the 
interior  accidentally  became  acquainted  with  him,  and 
believing  there  was  material  in  him  for  a  country  school- 
master, took  him  in  his  farm-wagon  to  his  home  at  Rom- 
ney,  Tippecanoe  County,  Indiana.  Romney  was  too 
small  a  place  for  the  eye  of  the  geographer,  and  had  no 
existence  on  the  map ;  but  it  maintained  its  store,  black- 
smith-shop, tavern,  and  "  grocery "  in  the  clearing ;  its 
only  public  edifice  the  log  building  that  answered  the 
double  purpose  of  a  school-house  in  the  week,  and  on 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  479 

Sundays  a  church  for  any  travelling  preacher  that  hap- 
pened in  the  neighborhood.  For  about  a  year  Lockwood 
taught  alternate  terms  at  Romney  and  Rob  Roy,  a  sim- 
ilar village  in  an  adjoining  county ;  devoting  his  time  out 
of  school  to  the  study  of  medicine.  A  friend  writes: 
"  For  some  time  everything  went  well,  but  some 
unpleasantness  arose  between  him  and  his  Rob  Roy 
patrons,  and  the  warrior-habit  which  so  distinguished  him 
in  later  life  brought  on  a  sharp  collision.  Without  hesi- 
tation, he  struck  out  for  Romney  one  of  the  coldest  days 
in  winter,  with  the  snow  a  foot  deep.  In  crossing  "  the 
eight-mile  prairie  "  he  lost  his  way,  and  never  was  nearer 
his  end  until  he  went  down  in  the  Central  America.  He 
reached  my  father's  about  ten  o'clock  at  night, 
with  his  hands  and  feet  so  badly  frozen,  that,  though 
every  remedy  was  resorted  to,  he  was  disabled  for  the  rest 
of  the  winter.  As  soon  as  he  was  able  to  walk,  he  com- 
menced a  school.  We  had,  at  that  time,  a  debating- 
society  in  Romney  that  was  attended  by  all  the  "  natives." 
Lockwood  did  not  seem  to  have  the  least  capacity  for  ex- 
temporaneous speaking ;  but  every  Saturday  night  he  was 
regularly  on  hand,  with  a  half-hour's  speech  thoroughly 
committed,  and  delivered  without  reference  to  manuscript. 
Some  of  these  efforts  gave  promise  of  hismaturest  powers. 
You  remember  his  solemn  manner,  his  deep,  sepulchral 
tones,  and  the  force  and  energy  with  which  he  pressed 
his  strong  points.  They  are  all  associated,  in  my  mind, 
with  the  debates  at  the  old  log  school-house." 

About  this  time  he  determined  to  study  law,  and, 
borrowing  a  copy  of  Blackstone,  almost  literally  com- 
mitted its  text.  His  country  school  of  from  seven  to 
twenty  pupils  did  not  afford  a  very  promising  outlook, 
and  he  was  induced  to  go  to  Crawfordsville.  This  place, 
now  the  flourishing  seat  of  Wabash  College,  did  not  then 
contain  material  for  two  schools,  and  the  field  was  already 
occupied  by  one.     Lockwood  opened  in  opposition  ;  got 


480  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

into  a  newspaper  quarrel  with  his  competitor ;  studied 
law  by  night ;  got  married  without  a  dollar  in  the  world  ; 
was  admitted  to  practice  by  the  Circuit  Court,  and  went 
to  Thorntown,  a  new  place  in  Boone  County,  to  establish 
himself  in  his  profession.  He  did  not  wait  long  for  a 
client  :  he  was  sued  by  his  landlord,  and  made  his  first 
appearance  as  a  lawyer  in  his  own  case.  He  pleaded  an 
unpaid  tuition-bill  as  a  set-off,  but  judgment  was  given 
against  him.  He  was  unable  to  give  an  appeal-bond,  and 
the  bed  he  and  his  wife  slept  on  was  sold  by  the  consta- 
ble for  less  than  $10.  No  incidents  of  his  life  seem  to 
have  made  a  deeper  impression  on  him  than  the  flogging 
of  his  messmate  and  the  constable's  sale  of  his  bed.  He 
referred  to  the  first  with  a  shudder,  as  if  the  scene  were 
still  before  his  eyes,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life.  The  last 
burned  into  his  soul  a  dread  and  horror  of  debt :  he  never 
forgave  its  author,  and,  in  the  course  of  his  professional 
life,  found  an  opportunity  to  take  a  keen  revenge. 

Many  years  after,  speaking  of  his  Thorntown  experi- 
ence, he  said  :  "  I  never  knew  how  my  wife  lived.  I  know 
I  lived  on  potatoes  roasted  in  the  ashes."  He  buried 
himself  in  study — sought  forgetfulness  in  study,  as  men 
do  in  drink.  In  his  second  case  he  was,  fortunately,  not 
his  own  client — fortunately  lost  it,  and  appealed  to  the 
Supreme  Court.  Never  was  a  case  involving  so  small  an 
amount  more  thoroughly  prepared.  He  briefed  it  as 
though  thousands  were  pending.  In  after-years  he  often 
referred  to  the  embarrassment  he  experienced  at  his  first 
appearance  at  the  Supreme  Court.  Morbidly  sensitive  ; 
his  uncouth  appearance  and  coarse,  ill-fitting  clothes  a 
burden  to  him  ;  oppressed  by  a  deep  sense  of  poverty  and 
friendlessness — he  shrank  from  contact  with  men  of  the 
world  as  one  long  immured  in  darkness  is  pained  by  the 
light.  He  had  not  the  courage  to  state  to  the  court  that 
he  was  present  for  examination  as  an  attorney,  and  was 
only  relieved  from  this  difficulty  by  the  accidental  pres- 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  48 1 

ence  of  the  judge  of  his  circuit,  who  made  the  necessary- 
motion.  Lockwood's  appearance,  of  course,  attracted  at- 
tention ;  and  the  manner  in  which  he  passed  his  examina- 
tion, with  the  exhaustive  argument  he  made  in  the  case 
he  had  carried  up  (Poulk  et  al.  vs.  Slocum,  3d  Blackford, 
421)  made  him  known  to  the  court  and  bar  as  a  man  of 
mark.  Even  his  landlady  noted  the  changed  manner  to- 
ward him,  and  translated  him  from  a  lumber-room  in  the 
attic  to  the  floor  of  his  peers. 

His  new  position,  however,  brought  him  no  new  clients 
at  Thorntown.  He  knew  none  of  the  arts  by  which  suc- 
cess is  conciliated.  He  was  never  the  next  friend  of  the 
clerk,  the  favorite  of  the  sheriff,  the  intimate  of  the 
judge,  familiar  with  jurors,  nor  the  confidant  of  witnesses. 
He  realized  his  disadvantage  in  the  small  encounters  of 
social  intercourse,  and  avoided  them.  He  became  moody, 
reserved,  abstracted,  studious.  Never  seeking  business, 
what  little  there  was  in  his  sparsely  settled  country  did 
not  seek  him.  His  deep  love  and  ardent  study  of  the 
law  as  a  science,  were  rather  bars  than  aids  to  his  immedi- 
ate success  ;  and  his  poverty  was  unrelieved.  He  was 
refused  credit  for  a  trifling  amount  at  the  village  store : 
he  wrote  the  name  of  the  owner  in  his  black-book,  and 
went  back  to  potatoes  in  the  ashes,  with  salt  for  a  luxury. 
His  home  was  never  a  happy  one.  He  knew  "  the  law 
was  a  jealous  mistress,"  and  in  his  heart  it  had  no  rivals. 
He  was  still  under  five-and-twenty ;  but  he  never  was 
young.  His  life  was  always  a  struggle.  He  would  make 
no  terms  with  Fortune — it  was  an  enemy  to  be  conquered. 
In  all  his  professional  career  he  never  seemed  so  entirely 
himself,  as  when  he  felt  that  court  and  jury  were  against 
him,  and  must  be  overcome  by  sheer  force  of  intellect  and 
will. 

Albert  S.  White,  of  Lafayette,  Indiana,  had  become  ac- 
quainted with  Lockwood  at  Indianapolis,  and  in  the  year 
following    (1836)  offered  him  a   partnership.     The   offer 


482  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

was  accepted,  and  he  removed  to  Lafayette.  His  oppor- 
tunity at  length  came. 

Soon  after  the  Presidential  election  of  1836,  a  homicide 
was  committed  at  Lafayette  that  caused  the  most  intense 
excitement.  Mr.  J.  H.  W.  Frank — a  very  young  man, 
the  junior  editor  of  a  Democratic  paper — had  won  a  small 
wager  from  Mr.  John  Woods,  a  prominent  merchant,  on 
the  vote  of  the  city  of  New  York.  Frank  called  for  settle- 
ment, and  was  accused  by  Woods  of  being  in  possession 
of  the  returns  at  the  time  the  bet  was  made.  A  quarrel 
and  rencounter  ensued,  in  which  Frank  killed  Woods  by 
stabbing  him  with  a  pocket-knife.  Woods  was  a  man  of 
high  social  position,  and  his  party  regarded  him  as  a 
martyr  whose  blood  was  to  be  avenged. 

White  and  Lockwood,  and  John  Pettit  were  engaged 
for  the  defence.  White  and  Pettit  prudently,  perhaps, 
insisted  that  the  safer  course  was  to  delay  the  trial,  get 
the  prisoner  released  on  bail,  and  forfeit  the  bond.  Lock- 
wood  urged  a  speedy  trial — that  it  was  better  Frank 
should  take  his  chance  at  once  of  suffering  the  penalty  of 
the  law,  than  to  be  a  wanderer  over  the  earth,  liable  to  be 
hunted  down  any  hour  of  his  life.  Frank  coincided  with 
this  view ;  and  Pettit  and  White,  though  continuing  to 
counsel  with  Lockwood,  took  no  further  part  in  the  active 
management  of  the  defence.  The  case  was  continued  one 
term,  on  motion  of  the  State,  and  Lockwood  had  ample 
time  for  preparation.  He  realized  that,  in  the  event  of 
conviction,  the  blood  of  the  accused  would  be  upon  his 
hands.  It  would  not  answer  to  reduce  the  crime  to  man- 
slaughter :  Frank  preferred  suicide  to  the  penitentiary, 
and  his  lawyer  applauded  the  choice.  Those  who  knew 
counsel  and  prisoner,  could  not  tell  which  felt  that  he  had 
the  greater  stake  in  the  result. 

When  the  case  came  on  for  trial,  Edward  A.  Hannegan 
was  employed  to  assist  Lockwood,  and  Henry  S.  Lane  and 
Isaac  Naylor  appeared  with  W.  P.  Bryant  for  the  prose- 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  483 

cution.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  most  remarkable  criminal 
trial  that  has  ever  occurred  in  Indiana.  Of  the  counsel 
engaged  in  it,  White,  Hannegan,  Pettit,  and  Lane  after- 
ward represented  that  State  in  the  United  States  Senate. 

A  trial  for  murder  is  essentially  dramatic,  with  the 
added  awful  interest  of  a  human  life  at  stake.  In  the 
trial  of  Frank,  the  legal  parts  were  strongly  cast.  Lane 
was  an  impetuous  speaker,  moving  straight  as  a  cannon- 
ball  to  his  mark.  In  his  younger  days — and  he  was  young 
then — his  speech  was  a  stream  of  fire.  Hannegan,  as  an 
orator,  was  not  unlike  Colonel  Baker :  inferior  to  him  in 
sustained  power,  he  was  his  equal  in  vivid  imagination, 
and  his  superior  in  emotion,  tenderness,  and  pathos.  Nay- 
lorwas  a  plausible  man,  who  won  the  confidence  of  jurors, 
and  magnetized  them  into  the  impression  that  he  was,  by 
turns,  the  candid  friend,  the  impartial  judge,  a  disin- 
terested witness,  a  fellow-juror  bound  by  his  oath — any- 
thing but  an  advocate.  Bryant  (afterward  United  States 
District  Judge)  was  cool  and  watchful ;  instant  to  see, 
and  call  attention  to  any  loose  joint  in  the  armor  of  his 
adversary. 

Fox  said  of  one  of  his  own  speeches :  "  If  it  reads  well, 
it  is  a  poor  speech."  In  reading  Lockwood's  speech 
on  this  trial,  it  seems,  with  the  exception  of  the  law 
argument,  declamatory  and  over-wrought ;  but  no  pe- 
rusal can  give  an  adequate  conception  of  its  living 
effect.  It  was  level  with  the  occasion  ;  fervid  with  the 
excitement  of  the  hour.  The  orator  fairly  met  and  turned 
back  the  tide  of  popular  passion,  by  the  greater  passion 
of  his  single  breast.  At  times,  his  delivery  swelled  to  the 
fury  of  the  storm  ;  at  others,  sank  to  the  plaintive  moan- 
ing of  an  autumnal  wind.  His  invective  was  terrible. 
He  poured  the  gall  of  years  of  bitterness  into  his  denun- 
ciation of  the  "  society  "  that  demanded,  and  the  clique 
that  had  contributed  money  to  secure,  a  conviction.  His 
statement  of  the  law  was  clear  and  exhaustive,  raising  the 


484  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

distinctions  between  murder,  manslaughter,  excusable  and 
justifiable  homicide,  with  metaphysical  subtilty,  and 
mathematical  precision.  In  shaping  the  testimony,  he 
seemed  to  make  his  own  case  ;  and  in  applying  the  law  to 
the  facts,  was  severe  as  logic.  The  speech  lasted  nine 
hours,  and  one  who  heard  it  said,  "  It  was  the  best  jury- 
speech  ever  made  on  this  continent — or  any  other  !  " 

Frank  was  acquitted.  The  case  was  for  Lockwood  more 
than  Erskine's  "  non-suit  of  cow-beef " ;  it  was  his  su- 
premest  triumph,  bringing  him,  at  twenty-six,  from  obscur- 
ity and  neglect  into  the  full  blaze  of  popular  attention  and 
applause. 

White  was  soon  afterward  elected  to  Congress,  the 
partnership  was  dissolved,  and  Lockwood  entered  upon 
an  extensive  practice. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  history  of  litigation  in  Indi- 
ana like  the  unsettled  land-titles,  and  the  conflict  between 
Old  Court  and  New  Court  which  made  Kentucky  the 
battle-ground  of  legal  giants ;  but  thirty  years  ago  she 
had  a  strong  bar,  and,  with  Blackford,  Dewey,  and 
Sullivan  on  the  bench,  as  able  a  Supreme  Court  as  ever 
adorned  the  jurisprudence  of  any  State  of  the  Union. 
The  habit  of  following  a  circuit  makes  a  different,  and, 
in  many  respects,  a  better  lawyer,  than  city  practice.  The 
circuit  lawyer  in  a  new  country  should  be  well  versed  in 
every  branch  of  his  profession.  There  is  no  chance  for  a 
division  of  labor.  He  must  be  ready  for  the  "  occasion 
sudden  "  ;  for  he  will  often  learn  for  the  first  time  the 
leading  facts  of  his  case,  while  it  is  on  trial.  He  will 
seldom  have  access  to  any  but  the  most  meagre  libraries, 
and  he  must  carry  his  books  in  his  brain.  With  a  Supreme 
Court  above  him  that  passes  no  mistakes,  and  a  back- 
woods jury  before  him  that  would  be  wearied  and  dis- 
gusted with  a  display  of  technical  learning,  and  would 
"tolerate  no  nonsense,"  he  must  be  so  grounded  in  ele- 
mentary law  as  to  be  able  to  try  his  case  closely  without 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  48  5 

his  books,  and  adhere  to  the  lex  scripta  while  arguing  to 
the  jury  as  a  man  rather  than  as  a  lawyer.  In  the  early 
days  of  Indiana,  lawyers  in  good  practice  would  ride  hun- 
dreds of  miles  on  horseback.  In  the  small  country  towns 
the  people  would  flock  to  the  court-house  as  to  a  show, 
and  in  every  important  case  the  whole  neighborhood 
would  take  sides.  There  was  not  often  any  assumption 
of  dignity  in  judicial  manners  and  bearing.  Sometimes 
the  court  would  adjourn  to  allow  the  bar,  jury,  and  wit- 
nesses to  go  to  a  horse-race,  where  "  His  Honor  "  would 
preside  with  the  same  impartiality  that  distinguished  his 
rulings  on  Kent  and  Blackstone.  On  one  occasion,  a 
Judge  whose  decisions  usually  stood  fire,  is  reported  to 
have  said  to  a  lawyer  who  afterward  acquired  a  national 
reputation,  "  Ned,  you  can  go  to  the  jury,  but  those  horses 
are  to  start  in  thirty  minutes,  and  I  advise  you  to  be  brief.  M 
Ned  was  brief,  and  the  judge  remembered  it  in  his  charge. 
In  the  evenings,  judge  and  lawyers  would  meet  at  the 
village  tavern  in  a  social  game  of  old-sledge,  and  discuss 
with  the  same  freedom  a  false  play,  and  any  mistake  that 
had  been  committed,  or  absurdity  that  had  been  uttered, 
in  the  court-room.  It  was  a  rough  school,  but  thorough, 
and  those  who  passed  through  it  fairly  earned  their  de- 
grees. In  addition  to  this  training,  Lockwood  was  always 
a  close  student  of  books.  He  read  nothing  superficially. 
He  analyzed,  made  his  own  syllabus  for,  and  common- 
placed every  case  he  ever  had  occasion  to  examine. 

One  who  knew  him  well,  and  was,  at  one  time,  his 
partner,  writes  :  "  Some  subjects  in  connection  with  Lock- 
wood  suggest  themselves  at  the  moment,  upon  which  I 
would  enlarge  if  I  had  leisure  :  I  allude  to  his  strong  sense 
of  natural  justice ;  to  his  conservatism  ;  to  his  indefatig- 
able pursuit  of  details  ;  to  his  hatred  of  shams ;  to  his 
contempt  for  the  narrowness  of  parties  and  partisans. 
How  he  loved  his  profession  !  How  he  identified  himself 
with   his  clients  !   How  proud  in  his  successes,  and  how 


486  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

gloomy  in  his  reverses  !  I  think  I  never  knew  a  man  of 
finer  impulses. 

"  The  finest  tones  of  his  eloquence  were  due  to  his 
reverence  for  sacred  things — the  corporal  oath,  the  con- 
science and  religion :  a  reverence  not  paraded  for  effect, 
but  unconsciously  permeating  his  speech,  and  giving  him 
with  juries,  a  surpassing  power.  He  seemed  almost 
morbidly  attached  to  the  study  of  such  cases  upon  wills, 
as  turned  upon  the  distinction,  shadowy  and  vague,  be- 
tween sanity  and  insanity.  His  own  mind  was  an  instruc- 
tive instance  of  the  painful  narrowness  of  this  line  of 
demarkation — the  boundary  between  the  fine  frenzy  of 
the  poet  and  the  dark  frenzy  of  the  lunatic." 

For  a  few  years  his  professional  business  was  large  ; 
but,  at  that  time,  every  man  in  the  "  West  "  was  a  specu- 
lator, and  in  the  revulsion  that  followed  the  flush  times, 
he  found  himself  involved  in  debt  beyond  his  immediate 
ability  to  pay.  In  the  spring  of  1842,  he  deposited  what 
money  he  could  raise  in  bank,  for  the  benefit  of  his  credi- 
tors, reserving  only  a  few  hundred  dollars  ;  placed  his  son  at 
a  Catholic  school  in  Vincennes,  and  disappeared.  He  had 
communicated  his  intentions  and  plans  to  no  one,  and  it 
was  not  known,  even  to  his  own  family,  until  long  after- 
ward, that  he  had  gone  to  the  City  of  Mexico.  For  some 
months  he  had  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  Spanish 
and  the  Civil  Law ;  but  it  would  have  been  as  rational  to 
have  expected  to  make  a  fortune  teaching  Mexican  chil- 
dren their  mother-tongue  as  in  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession. He  was  simply  flying  from  his  demon.  He  had 
no  acquaintances  in  Mexico  ;  it  is  not  probable  that  he 
made  any.  To  add  to  his  helplessness,  not  long  after  his 
arrival  he  was  attacked  with  inflammatory  rheumatism, 
and  saw  his  small  means  melt  away,  until  he  had  barely 
enough  left  to  pay  a  caravan-passage  to  Vera  Cruz.  He 
set  out  for  that  place  before  he  had  fully  recovered,  and 
arrived  there  with  $2  in  his  pocket,  which  he  immediately 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  487 

staked  at  monte.  He  won,  and  pressed  his  luck  until  he 
had  won  $50 ;  paid  his  passage  to  New  Orleans,  and  went 
from  there  to  Natchitoches,  where  he  had  a  cousin  living. 
He  resumed  the  name  of  Jessup,  and  again  applied  him- 
self to  the  study  of  the  Civil  Law  and  the  Louisiana  Code. 
After  spending  a  year  at  Natchitoches  in  study  and  oc- 
casional practice,  he  returned  to  New  Orleans,  and  applied 
for  admission  into  the  higher  State  courts.  He  had  suc- 
cessfully passed  his  examination,  and  was  about  to  take 
the  attorney's  oath,  when  he  accidentally  saw  in  the  court- 
room a  man  of  whom  he  could  expect,  and  from  whom  he 
would  receive,  no  favors — a  man  he  had  humiliated  with 
his  most  merciless  ridicule,  and  tortured  with  his  cruellest 
sarcasm  —  the  man  who  had  sold  his  bed  under  exe- 
cution ;  from  the  shadow  of  whose  memory  he  was 
fleeing.  Dreading  an  exposure  of  his  changed  name, 
he  instantly  quitted  the  room.  A  few  days  afterward, 
Sam.  Judah,  a  distinguished  lawyer  from  Indiana,  met 
him  on  the  street,  wearing  a  straw-hat,  "  negro-shoes," 
and  clothing  to  match.  He  wanted  to  borrow  $20  to  re- 
deem his  trunk.  Judah  had  but  $10  with  him.  "  It  is  of 
no  consequence,"  replied  Lockwood,  declining  the  $10, 
and  went  on  and  on,  until  a  recruiting  station  attracted 
his  attention.  Fairly  at  bay  with  Fate,  he  saw  the 
words,  "  Twenty  Dollars  Bounty  " — hesitated  a  mo- 
ment—then enlisted  as  a  common  soldier  in  the  United 
States  Army ;  took  his  bounty  and  paid  the  bill  at  his 
lodgings,  and  was  sent  to  join  his  regiment  in  the  Red 
River  (Arkansas)  country. 

After  a  few  months'  trial,  he  liked  the  land-,  as  little  as 
the  naval-service  of  his  country. 

His  friend  Hannegan  was  at  that  time  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  and,  learning  of  Lockwood's  enlistment, 
obtained  from  President  Tyler  an  order  for  his  discharge, 
which  he  sent  him,  with  $100,  and  an  earnest  entreaty  to  go 
home  to  his  family.     Lockwood  afterward  repaid  this  gift 


488  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

by  a  present  of  $10,000.  After  an  absence  of  nearly  three 
years,  he  returned  to  Lafayette,  found  his  wild  lands  suf- 
ficiently advanced  in  value  to  relieve  him  from  debt,  and 
resumed  his  profession. 

No  man  on  his  circuit — few  men  anywhere — equalled 
him  in  his  power  of  abstraction  and  prolonged  concentra- 
tion. He  held  a  subject  as  in  a  vice,  until  he  had  mastered 
it.  In  the  preparation  of  his  cases,  he  knew  no  weariness; 
and  if  his  faculties  began  to  flag  on  trial,  he  stimulated 
them  to  their  utmost  by  the  use  of  brandy,  opium,  and 
even  tincture  of  cantharides.  He  sometimes  erred  from 
over-preparation  ;  from  the  excessive  refinement  and  sub- 
tility  of  his  distinctions,  and  the  metaphysical  cast  of 
his  mind.  His  arguments  on  legal  propositions  were  apt  to 
run  into  disquisitions  upon  general  principles.  He  would 
hunt  a  principle  down  until  he  resolved  it  into  an  abstrac- 
tion. He  erred  oftener  from  an  absorbing  interest  that 
identified  him  with  his  client — or,  rather,  made  himself 
the  real  party  in  the  case — from  the  violence  of  his  per- 
sonal feelings,  the  bitterness  of  his  prejudices,  and  his  un- 
disguised contempt  for  a  judgment  that  did  not  see  as  he 
saw,  and  rest  in  his  conclusions.  He  could  not  leave  his 
likes  and  hatreds  at  the  door  of  the  court-room,  without 
divesting  himself  of  personality.  The  successful  lawyer 
should  conduct  the  trial  of  his  cause  as  the  coolest  gambler 
watches  his  game,  unmoved  by  the  magnitude  of  the 
stake.  He  may  be  excited,  but  must  never  be  carried 
away  by  his  own  vehemence  ;  and  in  the  very  torrent, 
tempest,  and  whirlwind  of  his  passion,  must  watch  the 
play  of  his  own  feelings,  and  measure  the  effect  his  most 
righteous  indignation  and  noble  anger  will  have  upon  the 
minds  he  seeks  to  convince. 

These  faults  were  all  illustrated  in  the  trial  of  a  case, 
the  result  of  which  was  the  immediate  occasion  of  his 
coming  to  California.  In  1848-9  he  was  employed  to 
contest  a  death-bed  will,  where  the  testator,  being  child- 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  489 

less,  had  bequeathed  his  property  to  his  wife's  relatives, 
who  were  comparatively  affluent,  to  the  exclusion  of  his 
own,  who  were  poor.     One  of  the  principal  legatees  was 

Holloway,  (ex-Commissioner  of  Patents)  who  had,  at 

some  time  previous,  refused  to  pay  a  fee  charged  him  by 
Lockwood,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  exorbitant.  Lock- 
wood  sued  for  it,  recovered  judgment  for  the  full  amount, 
and  remitted  the  judgment,  with  the  assurance  that  he 
would  take  his  pay  in  some  other  manner.  In  the  case  of 
Hill  vs.  Holloway,  he  saw  an  opportunity  to  make  his 
promise  good,  and  he  entered  upon  it  with  all  the  interest 
inspired  by  a  favorite  intellectual  pursuit,  and  the  ardor 
of  vindictive  hatred. 

At  the  trial,  he  was  so  intent  upon  attributing  improper 
influences,  and  raising  the  presumption  of  fraud,  that  he 
failed  to  bring  out  the  fact,  which  it  is  possible  might  have 
been  established  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  jury,  whose 
sympathies  were  strongly  against  the  will,  and  which  would 
have  been  fatal,  that  the  testator  affixed  his  signature  (the 
name  was  illegible)  in  articulo  mortis,  and  that  he  was  dead 
before  the  subscribing  witnesses  had  signed.  His  argu- 
ment took  up  three  days :  he  regarded  it  as  the  ablest 
effort  of  his  life  ;  but  it  failed  of  its  purpose,  as  what 
three-day  argument  does  not  ?  While  the  jury  were  out, 
Lockwood  sat,  as  usual  after  a  hard  contest,  moody  and 
abstracted,  fighting  the  battle  over  again  in  his  own  mind, 
and  seeing  perhaps  but  too  clearly  where  it  had  been  lost, 
if  it  were  lost.  When  the  jury  came  in,  and  the  verdict 
against  him  was  read,  he  arose,  struck  the  table  with  his 
clenched  fist,  and  swore  he  would  never  try  another  case 
in  that  court. 

He  never  did. 

His  friend,  Mr.  E.  L.  Beard,  was  making  preparation  to 
go  to  California,  and  Lockwood  proposed  to  join  him. 
He  thought  he  could  do  well  by  shipping  a  lot  of  liquors 
from  New  York  in  small  bottles,  and  peddling  them  to 


490  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

miners !  Beard  had  determined  to  go  through  Mexico  to 
Mazatlan  ;  Lockwood,  not  wishing  to  renew  his  acquain- 
tance with  the  Mexicans,  took  passage  around  the  Horn. 
Before  parting,  the  friends  provided  themselves  each  with 
a  bugle  of  the  same  tones,  that  they  might  hear  and  an- 
swer each  other's  calls,  if  they  should  at  any  time  get  lost 
in  the  wilderness  of  California.  Beard  had  been  in  Cali- 
fornia some  months,  and  was  living  at  the  Mission  of  San 
Jose,  when,  one  day,  he  heard  the  familiar  sound  of  Lock- 
wood's  bugle.  Answering  the  call,  he  soon  met  Lockwood 
— covered  with  mud,  gun  on  shoulder,  knife  and  pistols 
in  belt,  bugle  in  hand — like  a  modern  Don  Quixote  going 
to  summon  the  surrender  of  a  castle ;  with  a  sailor  com- 
panion, loaded  down  with  bundles,  for  a  Sancho  Panza. 

Lockwood  had  suffered  severely  from  scurvy  during  the 
voyage.  On  arriving  at  San  Francisco,  he  started  for  the 
Mission,  landing  in  a  whale-boat  with  one  boatman  ;  got 
lost ;  had  been  in  the  swamp  all  night  ;  had  taken  short- 
cuts through  sloughs  and  bayous  ;  was  chilled,  famished, 
and  very  ill.  On  reaching  the  house,  he  insisted  that  he 
must  be  bled.  The  only  physician  in  the  neighborhood 
assured  him  that  bleeding  would  be  certain  death.  Lock- 
wood  maintained  his  opinion ;  and  as  the  only  way  to 
demonstrate  its  correctness  was  by  experiment,  he  tried 
it — bled  himself  until  the  doctor  admitted  the  experiment 
was  a  fair  one  ;  and  confounded  his  antagonist  and  science 
by  getting  better,  and  eventually  well. 

Before  leaving  New  York,  he  had  been  induced  to  aban- 
don his  contemplated  travelling  bar,  and  on  the  voyage 
had  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  medicine.  He  had 
quarrelled  with  the  law,  and  thought  of  going  back  to  his 
first  love ;  but  his  hatred  of  sciolism  made  him  unwilling 
to  try  experiments  upon  any  life  but  his  own  though  his 
success  in  medicine,  where  he  was  his  own  first  patient, 
was  more  flattering  than  in  the  law,  where  he  was  his 
own  first  client. 


if  A  GA  ZINES—JO  URN  A  L  S.  49 1 

He  soon  came  up  to  San  Francisco,  and  for  six  months 
was  clerk  in  a  law-office,  where  he  not  only  furnished  the 
law,  but  swept  the  office,  made  the  fires,  and  in  all  respects 
complied  with  his  agreement  to  "  make  himself  generally 
useful."  He  received  his  wages  every  evening  ;  every 
night  found  him  in  a  gambling  saloon ;  every  morning 
penniless.  His  legal  service  was  appreciated  in  the  office, 
though  he  was  spared  no  humiliation  ;  and,  at  the  end 
of  his  term,  he  was  patronized  with  the  offer  of  a  partner- 
ship, if  he  would  stay  a  year.  "  I  have  fulfilled  my  con- 
tract to  the  letter,"  he  replied,  "  and  you  have  paid  me  as 

you  agreed,  but  I  would  not  remain  another  hour  " 

The  close  of  the  speech  would  not  look  well  in  print. 

He  entered  into    a   law  partnership  with and , 

which  lasted  until  there  was  one  division  of  profits. 
In  the  allotment  to  Lockwood,  there  was  $500  of  State 
scrip,  which  he  agreed  to  sell  to  one  of  his  partners  at  a 
price  named.  When  he  brought  in  the  warrants  next 
morning,  their  value  had  declined — at  least,  in  his  part- 
ner's estimation — and  Lockwood  tore  them  up,  and  left 
the  office. 

For  a  month  or  two,  he  worked  as  a  day-laborer — 
shovelling  sand,  coaling  steamers,  and  doing  anything  that 
came  to  hand.  While  he  was  thus  engaged,  an  old  ac- 
quaintance sought  him  out,  to  get  him  to  try  an  important 
law-suit,  involving  title  to  real  estate  in  the  city.  Lock- 
wood  at  first  refused  to  go  ;  said  he  was  earning  an  honest 
living,  and  did  not  want  to  be  disturbed.  His  friend 
persisted,  and,  at  length,  banteringly  offered  to  double  his 
daily  wages  if  he  would  go  to  work  on  his  case.  This 
proposition  struck  Lockwood  favorably,  and  he  acceded 
to  it,  stipulating  that  he  should  be  paid  every  day,  and 
that  at  no  time  afterward  should  any  other  fee  be  offered 
him,  directly  or  indirectly;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  I  want  none 
of  my  partners'  earnings,  and  they  shall  have  none  of 
mine."     He   tried   the    case    successfully ;    the   profit  in- 


492  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

volved  was  of  great  value  :  but  he  held  his  client  to  his 
contract,  and  his  daily  wages  was  his  only  fee. 

After  the  term  of  his  "  partnership  "  expired,  he  opened 
an  office  alone,  and  was  soon  after  employed  as  counsel 
by  Palmer,  Cook  &  Co.,  and  through  that  connection  was 
introduced  to  a  general  and  lucrative  practice. 

Mr.  Palmer  was  at  San  Jos£  in  the  winter  of  1851, 
during  the  session  of  the  Legislature  at  that  place,  anxious 
to  secure  the  best  possible  legal  services  for  his  firm,  and 
particularly  for  a  test-case  that  involved  the  "  water-lot 
titles,  Government  Reserve,"  etc.  One  evening,  General 
McD and  Judge  H were  in  his  room,  and  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  he  would  take  their  opinion  as  to  who 
was  the  best  land-lawyer  in  San  Francisco.  Handing  each 
a  slip  torn  from  the  margin  of  a  newspaper,  he  asked  them 
to  write  the  name  of  the  man  entitled  to  that  pre-eminence 
in  their  judgment.  He  was  surprised  to  find  the  same 
name  written  by  each,  and  more  surprised  that  it  was  a 
name — Lockwood — of  which  he  had  never  heard.  He 
returned  to  San  Francisco  the  following  day,  to  find  this 
strange  lawyer,  who,  in  the  trial  of  a  single  case,  had  im- 
pressed two  of  the  finest  legal  minds  in  the  State  with  a 
sense  of  his  superiority.  The  interview  and  its  result  will 
be  given,  as  nearly  as  they  can  be  recalled,  in  Mr.  Palmer's 
words  : 

"  I  found  Lockwood  in  an  unfurnished  office,  apparently 
absorbed  in  a  black-letter-looking  law-book.  I  introduced 
myself,  and  told  him  the  case  in  which  I  wished  to  employ 
him.  There  was  no  need  to  go  into  details,  as  the  case 
was  well  known  by  its  title,  having  been  freely  discussed 
by  the  newspapers.  Lockwood,  scarcely  looking  up  from 
his  book,  said,  '  I  don't  think  you  have  got  any  case.' 
Piqued  by  his  abruptness,  I  answered,  '  When  you  have 
given  the  matter  as  much  attention  as  I  have,  perhaps  you 
will  be  of  a  different  opinion.'  '  If  you  will  come  to-mor- 
row morning,'  he  replied,  '  I  will  give  you  a  final  answer.' 


MA  GA  Z1NES—J0  URN  A  L  S.  493 

When  I  went  back,  he  was  in  the  same  position.  It  did 
not  seem  to  me  that  he  had  moved,  or  turned  a  leaf  of 
the  volume  before  him.  Without  addressing  a  word  di- 
rectly to  me,  except  to  acknowledge  my  presence,  he 
said,  as  if  reading  aloud  to  himself,  '  A  conveyance  that 
is  void,  is  void  forever.' 

"  Not  relishing  that  application  of  law,  and  nettled  by 
his  manner,  I  remarked  that  the  counsel  for  the  other  side 
would  probably  be  able  to  find  that  principle  without  his 
assistance.  Without  heeding  my  interruption,  he  went 
on,  in  the  same  measured  manner,  '  But  the  sovereign 
power,  by  a  sovereign  act,  may  give  validity  to  the  terms 
of  a  conveyance  which  is  void.' 

"  I  saw  his  meaning  and  its  importance  as  by  a  flash  of 
lightning,  and,  applying  it  to  the  case,  exclaimed, '  Then 
an  Act  of  the  Legislature  may  refer  to  a  void  deed  for  a 
description  of  lands ;  and  it  is  the  law  which  conveys  the 
title,  not  the  deed  ?  ' 

"  '  Precisely.     I  will  take  your  case,  and  win  it.' 

"  From  the  moment  he  announced  his  position,  I  felt 
that  he  would  win  it  ;  but  when  the  cause  was  coming  on 
for  trial,  I  was  amazed  and  terrified  by  the  quantity  of 
brandy  he  drank.  I  remonstrated  to  no  purpose.  Out- 
side the  court-room  he  became  dull  and  stolid  ;  within,  on 
trial  he  was  luminous,  ready  upon  every  proposition  ;  and 
I  was  constantly  asking  myself,  '  How  long  can  he  hold 
out  ?  '  The  case  was  on  trial  several  days ;  four  lawyers, 
as  able  as  any  in  the  State,  were  on  the  other  side ;  and 
I  do  not  remember  a  single  instance  in  which  Lockwood 
was  taken  at  a  disadvantage,  either  in  argument,  authority, 
or  repartee.  I  recall  at  the  moment  one  passage  between 
him  and  Isaac  E.  Holmes.  Lockwood  had  quoted  law  to 
the  effect,  I  think,  that  under  certain  conditions,  an  ease- 
ment might  be  extinguished  by  a  change  of  the  fee. 
Holmes  interrupted  him — '  Do  you  state  that  as  law,  Mr. 
Lockwood  ? ' 


494  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  '  Yes,'  replied  Lockwood,  his  manner  for  the  moment 
slow,  almost  to  drawling ;  '  I  state  it  as  law  :  and  I  have 
tried,  and  gained,  an  important  case  upon  that  principle.' 

"  *  That  case  has  not  been  reported,  I  fancy.  It  is  not 
in  the  books,  is  it  ?     It  is  Hoosier  law,  I  presume.' 

"  '  No,  sir  ;  the  case  is  not  in  the  books  which  the  gentle- 
man has  read.  It  was  tried  before  an  Indiana  court,  an 
Indiana  bar — a  court  and  bar  on  which  the  gentleman's 
transcendent  abilities  would  reflect  no  credit.' 

"  He  held  out,  made  his  words  good,  and  won  the  case. 
He  was  immediately  retained  by  Palmer,  Cook,  &  Co.  as 
their  general  counsel ;  and  though  paid  large  fees,  his 
legal  services  were  considered  cheap.  Of  course  he 
was  not  always  successful  (the  lawyer  has  had  a  small 
practice  who  never  lost  a  case),  but  he  was  always  ready. 
I  never  knew  him  to  ask  a  continuance.  A  starved  lion 
were  scarcely  fiercer  than  he  after  a  defeat.  When  he 
was  at  bay,  some  one  was  apt  to  get  hurt.  As  an  instance 
of  his  crushing  manner :  once,  when  a  witness,  whose 
answers  had  been  unsatisfactory,  if  not  untrue,  and  whom 
he  had  cross-examined  at  great  length,  was  about  to  leave 
the  stand,  Lockwood  detained  him  with  '  One  question 
more ;  '  finished  the  sentence  he  was  writing,  looked  up, 
and  transfixed  him  with  the  question,  '  Would  you  believe 
yourself  under  oath  ?  ' 

"  Our  patience  was  often  taxed  by  his  humors  ;  but  you 
know  one  can  grant  everything  to  the  eccentricities  of 
genius,  who  would  concede  nothing  to  the  caprices  of  a 
fool." 

His  large  professional  gains  only  fed  his  passion  for 
gambling.  Again  at  war  with  himself  and  the  world,  he 
determined,  in  the  summer  of  1853,  to  break  off  his  associa- 
tions, and  go  to  Australia.  Some  of  his  clients  subsidized 
the  master  of  the  vessel  on  which  he  had  taken  passage 
to  remain  in  port  a  week  after  Lockwood  had  gone  on 
board,  to  see  if  he  would  not  change  his  mind.     When  it 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  495 

was  evident  he  would  not,  one  of  them  visited  him  to  in- 
quire if  he  had  any  money.  "  Yes,"  he  answered,  taking 
a  quarter-eagle  from  his  pocket  and  throwing  it  overboard  ; 
"  but  I  will  sail  free."  His  friend,  Mr.  Beard,  however, 
had  placed  some  clothing  and  money  in  the  hands  of  the 
Captain,  with  orders  to  smuggle  them  into  Lockwood's 
room  "  when  his  fit  was  over." 

Arrived  at  Sydney,  he  set  out  to  walk  to  Melbourne — 
about  seven  hundred  miles — through  wide  stretches  of 
uninhabited  bush  ;  over  spurs  of  mountains,  where  there 
was  not  so  much  as  a  bridle  path  :  a  journey  so  lonely, 
wild,  and  desolate,  that  no  other  White  Man  ever  volun- 
tarily made  it  alone  and  on  foot. 

He  had  always  had  a  great  admiration  for  English  Law 
Reports,  and  a  high  opinion  of  English  courts.  He  loved 
the  old  Common  Law  system  of  pleading  ;  the  distinction 
between  Law  and  Equity  proceedings ;  and  had  little 
respect  for  the  code  of  u  Law  made  easy,"  with  its  one 
form  of  civil  action  and  unlimited  liberty  to  amend.  He 
thought  that  in  an  English  court  he  would  get  into  a 
purer  atmosphere  of  law — where  cases  would  not  be  argued 
by  the  newspapers,  and  prejudged  by  the  public  that 
makes  and  unmakes  courts.  He  was  not  destined,  how- 
ever, to  have  any  such  experience  ;  for  a  law  of  the  Colony, 
or  a  rule  of  court,  prohibited  any  one  not  a  subject  of  the 
Queen  from  practicing  law  until  after  a  residence  of  seven 
years  in  Australia. 

He  remained  in  Australia  nearly  two  years.  At  one 
time  he  was  book-keeper  to  a  mercantile  house ;  at  an- 
other, clerk  in  a  law-office,  from  which  he  was  discharged 
for  refusing  to  copy  a  paragraph  into  a  brief,  which  he 
said  was  not  law  ;  and  for  some  months  he  was  employed 
in  the  lonely,  but  not  uncongenial  occupation  of  herding 
sheep.  After  his  return,  speaking  of  his  trip  to  Australia, 
he  said  :  "  I  know  you  thought  I  was  crazy,  but  I  was  not. 
It  was  the  sanest  act  of  my  life.     I  felt  that  I  must  do 


496  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

some  great  penance  for  my  sins  and  follies.     I  wanted  to 
put  a  gulf  between  me  and  the  past." 

On  the  return-voyage,  he  was  one  day  incensed  by  some 
real  or  fancied  impertinence  of  a  waiter  at  the  dinner- 
table.  After  waiting  a  moment  in  vain  for  the  Captain  to 
reprove  the  servant,  he  exclaimed,  "  Captain,  I  will  never 
eat  another  mouthful  on  your  ship."  The  next  day  he 
was  not  seen  in  the  cabin,  and  a  lady  passenger,  who  had 
heard  his  singular  threat,  went  to  his  state-room  and  told 
him  she  would  bring  him  something  to  eat  from  her  own 
stores,  in  which  neither  the  ship  nor  Captain  had  any 
interest.  "  Madam,"  he  answered,  "  my  words  were,  I 
would  not  eat  on  this  ship."  Fortunately,  they  put  into 
Honolulu  before  he  was  literally  starved,  and  he  took  pass- 
age on  another  vessel. 

Soon  after  he  arrived  in  San  Francisco,  he  was  offered 
a  very  large  fee,  and  a  contingent  fortune,  to  appear  for 
the  "  Peter  Smith  titles."  It  was  a  temptation,  for  he 
was  very  poor,  and  wanted  money ;  wanted  still  more  the 
tclat  of  a  great  law-suit,  and  thirsted  for  its  excitement ; 
but,  on  a  collateral  case,  he  had  once  given  an  opinion 
against  the  validity  of  the  Peter  Smith  sales,  and,  from  a 
sense  of  professional  honor,  declined  the  employment,  and 
refused  to  re-examine  the  question. 

After  his  "  great  penance,"  his  character  grew  more 
subdued,  his  aims  more  rational,  his  life  more  steadfast. 
He  no  longer  sought  excitement  and  forgetfulness  in  dissi- 
pation and  gambling.  He  had  always  clung  to  the  idea 
of  immortality — but  rather  as  a  hope  than  a  faith ;  and 
there  was  not  a  scar  on  his  soul  of  which  he  was  not  pain- 
fully conscious.  His  tired  heart  wanted  rest,  and  he  was 
beginning  to  seek  it — where  so  many  other  restless  spirits 
have  sought — under  the  shadow  of  authority,  in  the  teach- 
ings of  Rome.  Not  for  him,  though,  was  ever  the  undis- 
turbed peace  of  the  faithful ;  and  when  the  devil  in  his 
blood  arose,  who  can  tell  the  agony  of  his  soul's  conflict  ? 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  497 

He  returned  from  Washington,  after  the  argument  of 
Field  against  Seabury,  in  the  spring  of  1856.  In  the  fall 
of  1857  he  was  again  preparing  to  go  East  on  professional 
business.  To  one  of  his  friends  who  tried  to  dissuade  him 
from  going,  he  said,  "  I  will  stay,  if  you  insist ;  but  I  feel 
that  I  shall  go  mad  if  I  do." 

He  sailed  as  he  had  intended.  At  Aspinwall  he  con- 
nected with  the  ill-fated  Central  America,  on  her  last 
voyage.  During  the  storm  he  took  his  turn  with  other 
passengers  at  the  pumps,  until  his  strength  was  exhausted. 
Coming  up  to  rest,  he  was  met  by  one  of  the  officers,  and 
ordered  back  to  work. 

"  Sir,"  he  answered,  "  I  will  work  no  more." 

His  work  was  done.  He  went  into  his  state-room, 
closed  the  door,  and  was  never  seen  again.  In  a  short 
time  the  wreck  went  down. 

A  HOLIDAY  EXCURSION  WITH  H.  C.  WATSON 

It  was  not  last  summer,  nor  summer  before,  it  must 
have  been  six  years  ago,  going  on  seven  ;  it  was  that  very 
hot  summer  when  the  apples  on  the  north  sides  of  the 
trees  were  baked  by  our  northern  sirocco — the  year  before 
our  dear  H.  C.  W.  went  over  to  the  majority.  H.  C.  W. ! 
— I  wonder  how  many  there  are  whose  hearts  used  to  be 
daily  stirred  by  the  magic  eloquence  of  his  pen,  who  now 
ever  recall  his  name?  The  orator  lives  before  the 
public  and  behind  the  foot-lights.  In  the  rounds  of  ap- 
plause that  cheer  him  on,  he  hears  also  the  murmurs  of 
the  coming  generation.  He  discounts  his  fame  ;  and 
when  he  dies  his  memory  becomes  a  part  of  traditional 
lore.  Think  of  Patrick  Henry  or  Sargent  Prentiss,  think 
of  Whitfield  or  Peter  the  Hermit — unread  but  unforgot- 
ten.  The  eloquence  of  voice,  presence,  manner  ;  the 
fitness  of  time  and  occasion  when  heart  answers  to  heart; 
the  living  personal  magnetism,    the  frame  sentient,   the 


498  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

nerves  quivering,  the  eye  flashing  with  emotion  and  earn- 
estness pass  away,  but  the  memory  of  the  effect  remains  to 
embalm  the  orator's  name.  History  delights  to  describe 
him,  and  to  dwell  upon  his  minutest  characteristics  and 
mannerisms,  as  the  thumbed  books,  worn  clothes,  and 
broken  toys  of  children,  worthless  to-day,  become  precious 
mementoes  to-morrow,  when  their  little  owners  are  dead. 

The  orator  is  one  of  the  pet  children  of  his  age.  Of 
the  dead  of  our  State,  even  in  the  fierce  activity  of  its 
young  life,  who  are  the  best  beloved  and  oftenest  men- 
tioned ?  Am  I  not  right  ?  Tracy,  Baker,  and  King,  be- 
cause they  were  orators,  and  Broderick  because  he  was  a 
leader  and  because  his  death  was  tragic. 

How  different  is  the  life,  the  work,  the  reward  and 
public  recognition  of  the  editor,  under  the  tyrannous  im- 
personalism  of  the  press.  I  write  while  the  nation  is  in 
mourning  for  Horace  Greeley,  and  his  name  is  upon  every 
tongue.  But  the  life  of  Greeley  marked  a  transition  period 
in  the  American  newspaper.  Perhaps  he  is  the  last  of  the 
journalists  who  could  make  the  press  an  instrument  of 
personal  power.  And  even  in  his  case,  how  many  un- 
known pens  assisted  to  make  the  Tribune  what  it  was ; 
how  many  unknown  hands  purveyed  the  materials  of 
Greeley's  fame. 

Ordinarily  we  read  an  article  in  the  newspaper  as 
though  it  had  written  itself,  been  manufactured  by  ma- 
chinery, or  grown  up  in  the  night.  It  may  have  suggestive 
thought  enough  to  furnish  an  oration  which  would  win 
popular  applause  and  public  recognition,  but  we  read  it 
without  a  thought  of  the  long  vigil,  the  mental  discipline, 
the  toil  of  brain  which  are  behind  it.  It  may  be  it  will 
marshal  public  opinion  the  way  it  ought  to  go,  but  we 
know  not  and  do  not  seek  to  know  who  gives  the  word 
of  command.  The  system  has  its  advantages,  I  know. 
Perhaps  it  is  for  the  best  for  the  public,  certainly  it  is  for 
the  newspaper  ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  it  is  somewhat 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  499 

hard  upon  editors,  who,  after  all,  are  men  of  flesh  and 
blood,  and  to  whose  hearts  words  of  grateful  approval 
may  be  as  refreshing  as  to  ours. 

It  is  nevertheless  true  that  this  unknown  knight  of  the 
quill,  without  lance  or  heraldy,  the  Editor,  will  soon  van- 
quish and  drive  from  the  lists  his  plumed  and  glittering 
antagonist,  the  Orator,  whose  name  and  titles  are  shouted 
before  him  wherever  he  goes.  In  every  popular  audience 
now  there  is  one  dreaded  presence,  the  impassive  reporter, 
who  holds  the  speaker  in  awe — who  will  not  let  him  for- 
get that  he  speaks  to  an  hundred  times  as  many  eyes  as 
ears,  and  that  the  swelling  periods,  which,  in  the  glare  of 
the  gaslight,  might  pass  unchallenged  in  the  pomp  of 
declamation,  will  be  tried  in  the  morning  by  the  cold 
criticism  of  the  breakfast  table,  with  perhaps  the  disagree- 
able accessories  of  burned  steak  and  spoiled  coffee.  Fox 
said  of  one  of  his  speeches, "  If  it  reads  well  it  is  a  poor 
speech."  Now  every  speech  upon  a  topic  of  public 
interest,  if  worth  hearing,  will  be  read,  and  soon  the 
orator's  occupation  will  be  gone. 

But  I  did  not  intend  to  write  a  lament  over  the  decline 
of  eloquence,  or  a  prophecy  of  its  fall.  I  desired  to 
offer  a  passing  tribute  to  an  editor  who  did  his  life-work 
faithfully  and  well.  Personally  he  was  unknown  outside 
the  small  circle  of  his  social  friends.  His  life  was  in  his 
profession.  Every  day  the  panorama  of  the  world's  daily 
history  passed  in  review  before  him.  His  duties  on  this 
coast  covered  that  thrilling  period — our  civil  war.  How 
much  of  heart  and  brain  he  gave  to  his  duties,  none  but 
his  associates  can  ever  know.  Nor  can  they.  I  have  often 
heard  some  of  our  orators  (whose  character  and  virtues 
I  reverence)  praised  for  leading,  shaping,  and  giving  ex- 
pression to  the  patriotic  sentiment  of  the  State,  as  though 
the  fealty  of  California  was  on  account  of  their  labors 
and  utterances  ;  and  I  have  repressed  the  thought  (though 
I  would  not  pluck  a  leaf  from  the  chaplet  of  their  fame), 


500  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  I  knew  a  man  who  did  more."  His  name  was  HENRY 
Clay  WATSON.  Others,  no  doubt,  did  similar  labor.  But 
him  I  knew,  and  knew  that  night  after  night,  year  in  and 
year  out,  his  light  was  burning  while  you  and  I  were 
asleep ;  knew  that  his  lamp,  which  shed  its  light  around 
our  paths,  was  fed  by  his  life,  until  its  source  was  ex- 
hausted, and  he  too  was  asleep. 

A  few  friendly  hands  have  placed  a  modest  monument 
above  him,  a  few  pious  hands  keep  the  sod  fresh  and  clean, 
but  how  many  are  there  who  ever  recall  his  name  ? 

What  a  long  July  day  it  was.  I  wonder  if  the  days  are 
always  as  long  as  when  we  get  up  two  hours  early,  and 
the  nights  as  when  we  can't  sleep  ?  If  so  I  am  willing  to 
compromise  on  three  score  and  ten. 

H.  C.  W.  had  positively  consented  to  take  a  week  of 
holidays,  though  Prussia  had  just  declared  war  against 
Austria,  and  King  and  Emperor  were  sending  him  mes- 
sages by  telegraph  every  night.  There  were  four  of  us. 
We  had  Mistered  each  other  for  years  on  the  street,  but 
the  handles  got  knocked  off  our  names  before  we  got  to 
Folsom.  We  lost  our  names  before  we  got  back  and  H. 
C.  W.  christened  us  Oldbuck,  Hardtack  Carrigan,  Milton 
Tenderloin,  and  (himself)  Winkle  Jenkins.  Our  first  day's 
journey  was  to  Strawberry.  How  hot  and  dusty  it  was 
on  the  hurricane  deck  of  the  stage  from  Shingle  up,  until 
the  sun  got  behind  the  mountains  and  we  were  winding 
around  their  sides  in  their  great  shadows.  After  sunset  a 
fire  in  the  huge  fireplace  at  the  hotel  at  Strawberry  actu- 
ally looked  inviting,  and  we  realized  that  we  had  left  the 
world  beneath  us.  It  used  to  be  a  busy  place — Straw- 
berry— but  it  was  quiet  then — it  may  be  dead  now,  for 
the  locomotive  "  passed  by  on  the  other  side." 

After  supper  (the  trout  had  been  playing  in  South  Fork 
within  an  hour)  I  went  out  to  see  the  moon  come  up  over 
the  bald,  gray  peak  that  rises  like  a  sharp  pyramid  and 
stands  sentinel  at    "  Manassas  Gap."     It  was  a  beautiful 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  50 1 

scene  ;  grand,  too,  and  solemn  withal.  The  darkness 
seemed  to  settle  into  the  treetops  and  on  the  ground,  as 
the  tops  of  the  mountains  were  touched  with  light. 
Around  the  base  of  the  "  peak  "  was  scattered  a  moun- 
tainous mass  of  broken  stone,  and  on  the  other  side  of 
the  gap  was  a  denuded  mountain,  an  immense  truncated 
cone  from  which  the  mighty  fragments  might  have  been 
hurled  at  its  revival. 

"  War  between  the  Titans  and  the  gods,"  thought  I. 

"  There  has  been  something  powerfuler  than  nitro-glyc- 
erine  about  here." 

I  turned  at  the  words  and  saw  the  "  Judge  " — whom 
Winkle  immortalized  in  his  columns  as  "  Ramsdale 
Buoy." 

He  was  a  picture  to  look  at,  this  FalstafT  of  the  back- 
woods. To  my  unpractised  eye  he  seemed  six  feet  four 
in  height,  and  four  feet  six  in  circumference.  His  heart 
and  lungs  were  evidently  as  big  as  those  of  an  ox,  and 
had  to  have  chest  room.  His  face  seemed  small  for  his 
frame  and  his  eyes  small  for  his  face.  The  latter  were 
dark  gray,  of  the  fun-loving  pattern.  He  was  clean  shaved, 
perhaps  because  he  had  little  beard.  Hair  reddish,  and 
cut  close.  He  wore  a  cap  ;  a  blouse  whose  sleeves  were 
too  short,  and  butternut  trowsers  that  had  a  similar 
infirmity  in  the  legs.  For  this  reason,  perhaps,  his  hands 
and  feet  looked  phenomenally  large.  "  Brad  "  afterwards 
said  the  Buoy's  garments  were  always  scant,  as  no  tailor 
could  get  enough  for  a  pattern  out  of  one  bolt,  and 
suggested  that  his  boots  were  "  laid  out  "  by  a  civil  en- 
gineer. 

There  was  a  peculiarity  about  the  Buoy's  voice.  Orator 
Puff's  had  two  tones — his  had  three.  Usually  it  was  a 
musical  tenor,  but  it  would  sometimes  break  off  into  a 
fine  treble,  or  drop  into  a  bass  which  Forrest  would  have 
envied.  I  have  seen  the  Buoy  stop — as  if  in  wonder 
where  that  voice  came  from. 


502  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

"  You  are  going  up  to  Hope  Valley  a-fishing,"  said  the 
Buoy. 

"Yes." 

"  How  many  are  there  of  you  ?  " 

"  Four." 

"Then  there  will  be  just  a  stage-load  of  us — Charley, 
Brad  and  I,  and  the  Captain  are  going  along.  Charley  is 
the  best  whip  ;  Brad  is  the  best  shot,  and  I  am  the  best — the 
best  historian  in  the  mountains.     You  know  the  Captain  ?  " 

"No." 

"  He  is  from  Frisco  and  writes  for  the  papers." 

He  went  into  the  house.  The  Captain  was  sitting  by 
the  fire,  telling  a  story  of  a  sow  that  got  drunk  on  brandy 
cherries.  He  described  (not  without  humor)  the  amaze- 
ment of  the  pigs  at  the  unnatural  condition  of  their 
mother,  and  pointed  the  moral — "  ladies  should  never 
drink" — as  he  finished  his  toddy. 

The  Buoy  looked  at  him  as  though  taking  his  measure, 
and  mentally  soliloquized,  I  thought,  "  That  may  do  for 
the  plains,  but  the  imagination  soars  on  loftier  wing  in  the 
mountains." 

Brad  was  tall  as  the  Buoy,  but  as  thin  as  "  Master 
Slender  " — whom  he  resembled  in  nothing  else. 

When  we  started  next  morning,  the  Captain  had  the 
box  with  Charley.  We  had  the  Buoy  and  Brad  inside, 
and  one  other — "  Unknown."  We  had  driven  five  or  six 
miles  when  Buoy  stopped  the  stage  and  said  to  "  Un- 
known "  :  "  If  you  are  going  to  that  lake  here  is  your  place 
to  get  out.  I  '11  tell  you  the  way  so  you  can't  miss  it. 
Follow  up  that  ravine  about  three  miles  till  you  come  to 
a  deserted  cabin  ;  veer  about  three  points  to  the  north- 
east and  go  up  the  side  of  the  mountain  a  mile  and  a  half 
till  you  come  to  a  quartz  boulder — whitish  quartz — then 
go  nearly  due  east  over  the  top  of  the  mountain,  perhaps 
a  matter  of  two  miles,  till  you  come  to  a  big  pine  tree — 
some  of  the  limbs  broken  by  the  snow ;  then  make  an 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  503 

angle  of  forty-five  degrees  to  the  north  ;  meander  around 
for  an  hour  or  so  until  you  get  completely  lost  and  you 
will  find  that  lake." 

Unknown  looked  puzzled.  "  Nobody  ever  found  that 
lake  until  he  got  lost.  If  you  could  follow  up  that  stream 
you  would  get  there  in  time,  but  nobody  ever  did  follow 
it.  In  my  opinion  a  trout  could  not  find  its  way  through 
it.     You  had  better  take  my  chart." 

We  drove  on,  leaving  Unknown  looking  as  if  he  had 
achieved  the  last  part  of  the  problem  first,  and  got  lost  at 
the  start. 

A  few  miles  farther  on  we  stopped  to  breathe  the 
horses. 

"  Right  here,  two  years  ago,"  said  the  Buoy,  "  I  saw 
the  awfullest  storm  that  ever  blew  on  land.  Jim  Green 
had  just  opened  his  house  in  Hope  Valley,  and  I  had 
been  over  with  the  boys  having  a  good  time.  It  was  the 
longest  spree  I  ever  heard  of.  Some  of  the  boys  have 
not  got  over  it  yet ." 

"  Taken  up  the  first  and  second  extensions,"  interrupted 
Brad. 

"  And  some  of  them  are  dead." 

"  Struck  it  in  the  lower  level,"  Brad  parenthesized. 

"  I  remember  Jim  had  only  one  room  in  the  loft — a 
square  one  with  a  door  in  each  side.  About  daylight 
Tom  Hunchbrug  and  Zeke  Snyder  went  into  this  room 
to  get  a  nap,  and  saw  old  man  Garthwait,  the  driver, 
asleep  in  the  bed.  They  went  in  at  each  door  in  suc- 
cession. At  the  last  Tom  exclaimed,  'Zeke,  are  we 
drunk,  or  is  old  Garthwait  asleep  in  every  room  in  the 
house? 

"  We  had  got  this  far  on  our  way  back  when  that  storm 
came  up  very  sudden.  We  heard  it  for  a  few  minutes 
roaring  and  crashing  through  the  timber.  The  sky  be- 
came black ;  we  just  had  time  to  get  our  wagon  round, 
take  the  top  off,  chock  the  wheels,  and  get  the  horses  out 


504  NEWTON  BOOTH. 

when  the  wind  came,  with  torrents  of  rain.  The  pine 
trees  bent  like  whipstocks  and  snapped  like  pipe-stems. 
Such  sheets  of  lightning !  I  thought  it  would  strike  every- 
thing. You  see  that  fence?  The  lightning  knocked  it 
down — a  rail  at  a  time." 

"  I  wonder  you  escaped.  You  are  a  broad  mark,"  said 
Brad. 

"  If  you  had  been  here  I  should  have  hoisted  you  for  a 
lightning-rod,"  retorted  the  Buoy.  "  I  was  saved  by  my 
knowledge  of  science  ;  I  insulated  myself  by  standing  in 
a  half-emptied  champagne  basket." 

"  You  mean  two  baskets,"  buzzed  the  gad-fly,  looking 
at  the  Buoy's  feet. 

"  And  holding  up  an  empty  bottle  in  each  hand,"  pur- 
sued the  Buoy. 

"  Ajax  defying  the  lightning,"  I  said  mildly. 

"  Young  man,"  the  Buoy  replied  in  his  tragedy  bass, 
"  don't  you  call  me  a  Jack  again — I  won't  stand  it." 

I  felt  that  I  was  snubbed  and  the  two-penny  classics 
insulted.  The  Buoy  had  mercy  on  my  contrition,  and 
went  on. 

"  It  lasted  about  an  hour.  I  never  want  to  see  such 
another.  It  proved  one  thing  to  me — the  old  women  are 
right;  milk  will  curdle  in  a  thunder-storm.  You  see  I 
had  been  drinking  milk  punch,  and  it  soured  on  my 
stomach." 

"  They  should  have  put  you  in  a  hay  press  and  made 
a  cheese,"  Brad  put  in.  "  It  would  have  taken  the  pre- 
mium for  size,  and  made  Limburg  smell  like  a  rose." 

It  was  one  o'clock  when  we  reached  Jim  Green's,  in  Hope 
Valley.  Just  before,  the  Buoy  called  a  general  council, 
and  informed  us  that  Jim  was  the  cussedest  man  ever 
born  on  earth ;  that  he  was  a  regular  snapper ;  had  lost 
his  front  teeth,  and  his  mouth  opened  and  shut  like  a  New 
Testament  with  the  leaves  torn  out.  That  we  would  have 
to  humor  him — give  him    line.     The    Buoy  thought  he 


MA  GAZINES—JO  URNALS.  505 

could  fix  him  all  right,  if  he  had  time  enough  and  a  bottle 
of  whisky.     And  he  did. 

Jim  commenced  by  telling  us  there  were  no  trout  in  the 
stream,  no  hay  in  the  barn,  no  fire  in  the  house,  no  beds 
up  ;  that  his  wife  was  sick,  and  he  was  not  very  well  him- 
self. At  the  end  of  an  hour,  under  the  mollifying  influence 
of  the  Buoy's  treatment,  he  offered  us  the  best  he  had — and 
he  put  it  all  in  the  bill. 

Do  you  remember  your  sensations  at  catching  your  first 
trout — the  electric  tingle  in  your  elbow  when  you  felt  him 
at  the  hook,  the  involuntary  jerk  and  throw,  your  gratified 
surprise  at  landing  him,  and  the  blended  feeling  of  pride, 
admiration,  pity,  and  remorse  as  you  took  the  cruel  hook 
from  his  throat  ?  I  wonder  if  we  should  pity  them  less 
or  spare  them  more  if  they  were  not  beautiful — the  trout, 
I  mean. 

We  were  seated  around  the  wide  fireplace  that  night 
when  some  one  asked  Jim  if  it  was  not  very  lonesome  and 
dull  when  he  was  snowed  in  up  there. 

"  Not  so  dull  as  you  might  suppose,"  he  replied.  "  We 
have  a  good  deal  of  amusement,  setting  bear-traps  and  such 
like.  Besides,  nobody  is  snowed  in  that  can  use  snowshoes. 
We  had  a  ball  here  last  winter,  and  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren came  from  twenty  miles  around  on  snowshoes.  Some 
came  from  Silver  Mountain  and  Markleeville." 

"  I  remember  my  first  experience  on  snowshoes,"  said 
the  Buoy,  sending  a  whiff  from  his  pipe  across  the  room. 
"  I  'd  seen  the  boys  on  them,  and  it  looked  so  easy  I 
thought  anybody  could  do  it ;  that  it  was  not  a  thing  like 
skating  and  swimming,  to  be  learned — it  was  simply  riding 
down  hill.  I  got  a  pair,  bore  heavy  on  the  pole,  and 
started  down  a  pretty  steep  incline.  The  motion  was  a 
little  swifter  than  I  bargained  for,  but  I  managed  to  keep 
my  perpendicular  until  I  came  to  where  the  roads  forked. 
One  foot  took  one  fork,  the  other  the  other " 

Brad — "  Well,  there  was  not  room." 


506  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

"  There  was  a  place  in  that  snow  that  looked  as  if  a 
sugar  hogshead  had  rolled  over  it,  and  a  pair  of  snowshoes 
to  let  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill. 

"  You  ought  to  see  Snowshoe  Thompson.  He  dis- 
counts them  all.  He  is  as  tough  as  any  old  buffalo  ; 
hardy  as  a  pine  knot.  He  understands  navigating  snow- 
shoes  as  well  as  a  native  Californian  does  managing  horse- 
flesh. You  remember  the  side  of  the  mountain  at  Hawley 's 
grade?  " 

We  remembered  it.  It  was  a  perpendicular  or  over- 
hanging precipice  two  thousand  feet  high. 

"  I  have  seen  Snowshoe  Thompson  come  down  that 
quicker  than  a  squirrel  could  jump  from  a  tree." 

Oldbuck— "  Whe-ew  !  " 

"  You  think  that  is  fabulous." 

"Fabulous  is  no  name  for  it." 

"  Truth,  sir,  and  truth  is  stranger  than — history — and 
that  is  mighty  strange  sometimes.  Now  here  is  Jim 
Green,  he  is  no  slouch,  I  tell  you,  on  snowshoes  ;  and  he 
don't  grease  the  bottoms  of  them  either,  as  they  do  up 
about  Howland  Flat." 

"  It  takes  a  heap  of  knack,"  said  Jim,  "  to  guide  your- 
self with  the  pole  coming  down  a  steep  hill.  You  have 
to  calculate  ahead,  for  you  can't  turn  a  corner  sharp.  I 
have  come  down  the  hill  over  by  the  old  slide  so  fast  the 
pine  trees  looked  like  telegraph  poles,  and  seemed  to  be 
as  close  together  as  bristles  on  the  back  of  a  mad  hog." 

"  I  have  seen  Thompson,"  said  the  Buoy,  "  jump  a  cut 
sixty  feet  wide,  and  go  as  if  it  were  not  there.  Talk 
about  your  acrobats  and  flying  trapeze !  They  had  a 
snowshoe  race  over  at  Silver  two  years  ago  between 
Thompson  and  five  or  six  Norwegians.  There  was  a  gap 
in  the  fence  they  had  to  go  through  near  the  end  of  the 
track,  and  the  Norway  fellows  crowded  Thompson  out, 
but  he  jumped  the  fence  and  beat  them  in — distance,  half 
a  mile — time,  eleven  seconds  and  a  quarter. 


MAGAZINES— JOURNALS.  507 

I  took  out  a  note-book  and  commenced  to  make  some 
figures. 

"  What  are  you  figuring  at?"  said  the  Buoy,  in  his 
ominous  bass. 

"  I  was  trying  to  calculate  how  long  it  would  take  a 
stone  to  fall  half  a  mile,"  I  replied  meekly. 

"  What  has  that  to  do  with  it,  young  vulgar  fractions," 
he  retorted,  deeper  and  fiercer  than  ever.  "  Suppose  you 
calculate  how  long  it  would  take  lightning  to  do  it.  I  tell 
you,"  in  his  shrillest  treble,  "  Thompson  on  snowshoes  is 
lightning !  " 

I  subsided,  and  never  went  near  that  velvety  tiger-paw 
again. 

Six  years  ago,  going  on  seven — they  have  not  been 
holiday  years  either,  they  have  brought  a  good  deal  of 
toil  and  something  of  grief  to  the  lives  of  those  of  us  who 
are  left.  He  who  enjoyed  that  holiday  week  more  than 
either  of  us  (he  had  so  few  holidays)  has  been  dead  five 
years,  going  on  six.  The  sketches  he  wrote  of  our  trip 
contain  descriptive  passages  equal,  I  think,  to  Irving's 
best  style  in  that  kind  of  writing.  Will  the  Union  repub- 
lish them  in  its  New  Year  paper  ?  There  are  thousands 
of  your  old  readers  to  whom  they  will  be  a  grateful  me- 
morial of  a  man,  the  inscription  from  whose  grave-stone 
I  reverently  copy : 

"  HENRY   C.   WATSON. 
EDITOR    OF    '  SACRAMENTO    UNION.' 

Died  June  24TH,  1867,  Aged  36  Years." 


GREELEY  FOR  PRESIDENT. 

EDITORIAL  IN    "  SACRAiMENTO   UNION,"   JULY   II,    1872. 

Jerry  Black  is  quoted  as  saying  that,  if  this  world  and 
the  two  adjoining  were  searched,  there  could  not  be  found 
a  better  candidate  or  worse  President  than  Horace  Greeley. 
The  distinction  as  to  requisite  qualities  is  well  taken,  but, 


508  NEWTON  BOOTH, 

whether  his  shall  prove  a  name  potent  enough  to  conjure 
life  into  the  Democratic  party,  can  be  told  better  after  the 
election  than  before  it.  Fate,  destiny,  accident,  luck,  or 
whatever  you  call  it,  has  played  many  a  strange  prank  in 
affairs  since  the  serpent  interviewed  Eve,  but  none  more 
antic  than  when  she  marked  Horace  Greeley  as  a  Demo- 
cratic candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  found  his  creden- 
tials in  sixty  volumes  of  the  Tribune.  No  man  can  hide 
from  his  destiny,  and  if  the  presidency  or  candidacy  has 
determined  upon  a  victim,  not  millions  of  reams  of  paper 
swathing  him  in  infinite  folds  shall  protect  him  from  the 
arrows  of  fate. 

There  are  many  things  which  are  amusing  and  seem 
absurd  because  they  are  novel  and  unexpected,  and  which 
custom  reconciles  to  sobriety  ;  but  this  latter-day  conjec- 
ture grows  more  absurdly  impossible  and  impossibly 
absurd  to  the  imagination  the  more  our  understanding 
knows  it  is  so.  "  Seeing  is  believing  "  ;  but  in  this  instance 
the  more  we  see  the  more  we  can't  believe.  Rhetoricians 
draw  a  distinction  between  the  improbable  possible  and 
the  possible  improbable  ;  but  this  is  both,  and  it  is  neither 
and  is  true — and  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction — and  there 
is  afi  end  to  homilies,  and  wise  saws  and  modern  instances 
are  of  no  further  use. 

If  the  Democratic  party  should  die  and  Greeley  were 
appointed  administrator,  de  bonis  non  (whatever  that  may 
mean)  ;  or  if  Greeley  should  die  and  bequeath  his  anatomy 
to  the  Democracy  to  grin  the  hate  he  could  no  longer  speak, 
and  become  a  kind  of  articulate  symbol  of  the  memento 
mori  he  has  been  shouting  at  Democratic  feasts  for  thirty 
years,  the  thing  could  be  reconciled  to  our  ideas  of  eternal 
fitness.  But  dying  is  the  last  thing  (as  with  other  people) 
which  either  the  party  of  the  first  part  or  the  party  of  the 
second  part  propose  to  do,  and  the  consummation  of  these 
nuptials,  too  incredible  for  the  fancy,  passes  into  the 
stranger  realm  of  fact. 


MA  GA  ZINES—JO  URNALS.  509 

We  might  consider  the  matter,  if  it  be  not  indeed  to 
consider  too  curiously,  after  the  chop-logic  manner  of  an 
antique  sermon  (obsolete  now)  as  first  general  head,  in 
regard  to  the  party ;  second  general  head,  in  regard  to 
the  man  ;  and  through  each  of  these  general  divisions 
draw  parallel  subdivisions  :  First,  as  to  ostensible  mo- 
tives ;  second,  real  motives ;  third,  manner ;  fourth,  proba- 
ble result  as  to  parties  themselves,  with  a  pendant  as  to 
the  general  effect  and  ultimate  effect.  We  might  indulge 
in  speculations  as  to  whether  both  parties  will  die,  or 
either,  and  if  either,  which, — the  man  or  the  snake. 

But  still,  through  all  the  devious  ways  of  metaphysics 
and  the  wide  expanse  of  prophecy,  we  should  continually 
recur  to  the  central  thought — what  a  game  of  blind-man's 
buff  it  is  when  the  Democratic  party  with  bandaged  eyes 
catches  a  philosopher,  shouts  Horace  Greeley,  and  finds  a 
candidate  for  the  Presidency.  Was  the  philosopher  will- 
ing to  be  caught  ?  Did  he  slyly  whisper  his  name  to 
prevent  the  fatal  mistake  of  a  wrong  guess?  Did  the 
Democracy  know  the  philosopher  as  Falstaff  the  Prince 
from  instinct  ?  Was  there  any  secret  elective  affinity  be- 
tween them,  concealed  from  men  but  known  to  the 
supernal  powers?  Or  has  the  devil  cozened  them  both? 
If  only  one  of  the  players  is  fooled,  which  is  the  dupe? 

Surely  the  whirligig  of  time  never  brought  in  so  keen  a 
revenge  as  the  Democratic  party  compelled  by  force  of 
events  to  support  Greeley,  unless  indeed  it  be  when 
Greeley  seeks  that  support. 

But  there  is  a  sad  side  to  all  this.  We  are  sorry  for 
Greeley,  and  more  sorry  for — ourselves.  We  have  found 
the  clay  feet  of  our  idol  of  the  tripod.  Other  papers 
have  been  more  or  less  impersonal,  but  the  Tribune  has 
been  Horace  Greeley.  For  thirty  years  he  has  been  a 
power  in  the  land.  He  has  been  an  educator  of  public 
sentiment.  Boys  and  young  men  who  commenced  with 
the   Tribune  are  strong  men  and  old  men  now.     Perhaps 


5io 


NEWTON  BOOTH. 


no  man  has  spoken  so  long  or  to  so  vast  an  audience. 
Few  have  spoken  so  well.  Few  have  molded  so  many 
minds,  suggested  so  many  thoughts.  His  errors  on  the 
side  of  humanity  have  been  more  pardonable  than  the 
abstract  logical  right  of  others.  If  he  "  had  died  an  hour 
ago  he  'd  lived  a  blessed  time."  Alas  and  alas,  why  was 
he  not  content  to  go  into  history  as  the  great  TRIBUNE 
of  the  American  people  ?  Why  will  men  destroy  what  they 
are  in  a  vain  effort  to  be  what  they  are  not ! 


INDEX. 


Alabama  claims,  the,  272 

Alphabet,  the,  364 

American  people,  the  real  hero  of  the 
war,  211 

American  politics,  comparison  of 
theory  of  with  European  politics, 
26  ;  the  railroad  problem  in,  154- 

74 
American  polity,  leading  feature  of, 

25  sea. 
American  Revolution,  the,  comparison 

of  the  Rebellion  with,  246 
Anarchism,  270 
Anarchy  and  destruction,  remedies  for 

no  evil,  222 
Arcana  (Swedenborg's)  extract  from, 

397,  398 
Army,  standing,   no  need  of   in   the 

United  States,  222 
Arraignment  of  the  Democratic  party, 

215,  216 
Artificial    character    of    the    United 

States  revenue  system,  193 
Astronomy,  slow  growth  of,  341 
Augereau,  Marshall,  274 

B 

Bacon,  Lord,  380 
Baker,  E.  D.,  3 

Baker,  Senator,  denounces  Senator 
Breckenridge's  speech,  256 


Baldwin,  Judge,  witty  speech  of,   267 

Bank  of  Amsterdam,  the,  296 

Bank  of  England,  the,  296 

Barre,  Colonel,  430 

Barrymore,  Lord,  420 

Bartlett,  Mr.,  candidate  for  governor 

of  California,  261,  269 
Beethoven,  363 
Belknap,  William  W.,   impeachment 

of,  xiii. 
Bible,  the,  Swedenborg's  opinion  of, 

394 

Bidwell,  John,  199,  200 

Bills,  legislative,  number  of  intro- 
duced during  Governor  Booth's 
term  of  office,  132  (note) 

Bonds,  government,  interest  on,  225, 
226 

Booth,  Newton,  personal  characteris- 
tics and  traits,  vii.-xiv.  ;  birth,  xiii ; 
ancestry,  xiii.  ;  admitted  to  the  Bar, 
xiii.  ;  commences  business  in  Sacra- 
mento, xiv.  ;  marriage,  xiv. ;  death, 
xiv ;  his  important  work  in  influencing 
public  opinion  in  behalf  of  the 
Union,  3  seq.  ;  his  opinion  of  the 
value  of  our  national  holiday  (the 
Fourth  of  July),  5  ;  his  Fourth  of 
July  oration  at  Stockton,  5  ;  de- 
livers a  stirring  address  at  Michigan 
Bluff,  6 ;  his  address  on  "  The 
Debit  and  Credit  of  the  War,"  6  ; 
his  address  at  Sacramento  before 


512 


INDEX. 


the  National  Encampment  of  the 
Soldiers  of  the  Grand  Army,  7  ; 
reminiscence  of  early  life  in  the 
"Far  West,"  105,  106;  early 
friendship  for  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad  Company,  123  ;  speech  at 
Sacramento  at  the  ceremony  of 
breaking  ground  for  the  Central 
Pacific  Railroad,  123  ;  his  services 
in  the  State  Senate  in  behalf  of  the 
railroad,  123,  124  ;  his  strong  op- 
position to  the  encroachments  of  the 
railroad,  124  ff\  popularity  of,  124  ; 
tribute  of  to  the  Sacramento  Union, 
131  ;  course  as  governor  of  Cali- 
fornia, 131  sea.,  number  of  legisla- 
tive bills  introduced  during  his  term 
of  office,  132  (note)  ;  his  reasons 
for  commuting  the  death  sentence 
of  William  Williams,  132  ;  his  mes- 
sage advocating  the  abolition  of 
capital  punishment,  132  ;  firmness 
of  in  maintaining  the  laws,  133  ; 
sympathetic  nature  of,  133  ;  pro- 
ceeds against  a  State  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  corrupt  practices,  134 ; 
his  services  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  134  sea. ;  extract  from 
speech  in  the  United  States  Senate 
in  opposition  to  the  proposed 
Hawaiian  treaty,  135,  136  ;  his 
speeches  on  Pacific  railroads  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  136,  137 ; 
hostility   of    corporations   to,    137, 

138  ;  attitude  toward  the  silver 
question,  138,  139  ;  misrepresenta- 
tion of    his  services  by  the  press, 

139  ;  discouragement  consequent 
upon,  139  ;  retirement  from  public 
service,  140 ;  his  personal  refer- 
ence to  his  public  life,  140 ;  ex- 
tract from  speech  of  Hon.  Henry 
Edgerton  nominating  him  for  gov- 
ernor of  California,  140,  141  ;  his 
speech  of  acceptance,    141-4 ;  his 


debt  of  gratitude  to  California,  236, 
237  ;  destroys  a  large  mass  of  manu- 
script, 337  ;  public  loss  through, 
337  ;  contributions  to  periodicals, 
443-510  ;  literary  style,  443. 

Breckenridge,  Senator,   256 

Bright,  John,  219 

Broderick,  Senator,  speech  of,  256, 
257 

Brougham,  Lord,  413 

Buchanan,  James,  258,  259 

Buff  on,  361 

Burke,  Edmund,  414,  421,  427,  428, 
437,  438 

Burlingame  Swift  treaty,  the,  268, 
269 

Bushworth,  Richard,  16 

Business,  private,  Congress  not  com- 
petent to  direct,  194 

Bute,  Lord,  425 

Butler,  Benjamin,  232 


California,  condition  of  during  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion,  1  sea. ;  popu- 
lation of  in  1861,  1  ;  College  of, 
oration  at  commencement  of,  66-77  ! 
"State  Grange"  of,  address  before 
at  San  Jose,  96-107  ;  the  importance 
of  providing  irrigation  in,  100,  101 ; 
Newton  Booth's  course  as  governor 
of,  131  seg.  ;  Newton  Booth's  earnest 
labors  in  the  United  States  Senate 
in  behalf  of,  135  ;  amount  of  money 
given  to  railroad  companies  by,  170  ; 
amount  of  annual  payment  by  on 
the  bonds  of  the  Central  Pacific 
Railroad  Company,  170;  its  fight 
against  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad, 
198  ;  cost  to  the  State  of  maintain- 
ing the  public  schools  of,  210 ; 
phenomenal  natural  features  of, 
233  5  Governor  Booth's  debt  of 
gratitude  to,  236-7 


INDEX. 


513 


Caperton,  Senator  Allen  T.,  memorial 
address  on  life  and  character  of, 

333-6 

Capital  and  labor,  218  seq. 

Capital,  danger  to  the  country  by  the 
concentration  of,  166  ;  should  take 
care  of  itself,  185 

Capital  punishment,  Governor  Booth's 
message  advocating  the  abolition  of, 
132 

Capital  stock  of  the  United  States 
bank  in  1832,  188 

Capture  of  the  schooner  J.  W.  Chap- 
man, 2 

Carlisle,  John  G.,  265 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  208,  2ig,  387,  408 

Cathedral  at  Milan,  370 

Central  America,  the,  wreck  of,  412 

Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company, 
Newton  Booth's  early  friendship 
for,  123  ;  his  speech  at  Sacramento 
at  the  ceremony  of  breaking  ground 
for,  123  ;  his  services  in  the  State 
Senate  in  behalf  of,  123,  124  ;  fight 
of  the  Sacramento  Union  against, 
130  ;  amount  of  annual  payment  by 
the  U.  S.  Government  on  the  bonds 
of,  170  ;  amount  paid  by  California, 
170  ;  see  also  195,  196,  232,  235-7 

Changes  in  methods  and  principles  of 
transportation  caused  by  railroads, 

Change  of  principles  of  the  Democratic 

party,  214,  215 
Charles  the  First,  425 
Chase,  Judge,  decision  of  concerning 

greenbacks  as  legal  tender,  228 
Chatham,  Lord,  414-6,  424 
Cheatam,  John,  16 
Chemistry,  the  elements  of,  358 
Chinese  immigration,   241,  242,    268, 

269  ;  speech  upon,  delivered  in  the 

U.  S.  Senate,  318-26 
Circulating  medium    of    the    United 

States,  275 


Civilization,  limited  spread  of  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  382,  383 

Clairvoyant  power  possessed  by  Swed- 
enborg,  388 

Clay,  Henry,  oratory  of,  413 

Cleveland,  Grover,  266 ;  first  admin- 
istration of,  271,  272 

Clive,  Lord,  161 

Coal,  injustice  of  import  duty  upon, 
189 

College  of  California,  the,  oration  at 
commencement  of,  66-77 

Committees  on  which  Newton  Booth 
served  while  United  States  Senator, 

135 

Concentration  of  capital,  the,  danger 
to  the  country  by,  166,  185 

Confederacy,  the,  comparison  of  the 
"  Tories  "  with,  246 

Confederate  Government,  253,  254 ; 
free  trade  held  out  by,  to  England 
and  France,  as  an  inducement  to 
recognition,  266  ;  attitude  of  Great 
Britain  toward,  272,  273 

Congress,  not  competent  to  direct 
private  business,  194  ;  rebel  gener- 
als in,  212 

Connecticut,  amounts  paid  by  the 
State  for  the  maintenance  of  its 
public  schools,  210 

Consols,  English,  value  of,  295 

Constitution,  humorous  proposal  for  in 
France  during  the  Revolution,  219 

Contract  and  Finance  Company,  the, 
123,  125,  160,  170,  207 

Corporations,  hostility  of,  to  Senator 
Booth,  137,  138  ;  wealth  of,  a  source 
of  danger  to  the  country,  157 ; 
special  grants  to,  238 

Courage,  physical,  247 

Crane,  Addison  M.,  3 

Credit  Mobilier,  the,  125,  160,  170, 
194,  195,  207 

Currency,  varying  opinions  concern- 
ing, in   the   different    States,   227  ; 


514 


INDEX. 


speech  upon,  delivered  at  Sacra- 
mento, 213-30 ;  inflation  of,  285 
seq.  ;  speech  upon,  delivered  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  275-305  ; 
letters  to  the  Reptiblican  concern- 
ing, 305-313 
Curtis,  Judge,  225 


D 


Davis,  Jefferson,  259 

11  Debit  and  Credit  of  the  War,"  the 
(address),  6  ;  speech  delivered  at 
Sacramento,  in  1862,  full  text  of, 
53-66 

Debt,  of  the  various  States  in  1873, 
103  ;  of  the  railroads  in  the  United 
States,  in  1873,  103  ;  public,  reduc- 
tion of,  226 ;  of  the  United  States, 
287 

Debt  the  supreme  monarch,  305 

Debts  of  the  nations  of  the  world, 
total  of,  103 

Decoration  Day  oration,  delivered  at 
Sacramento,  in  1877,  107-16 

De  Cours,  Solomon,  346 

Democratic  party,  change  of  princi- 
ples of,  214,  215  ;  arraignment  of, 
215,  216  ;  dependence  of  upon  the 
Southern  States  and  New  York 
City  for  any  national  success,  266 

Demosthenes,  361 

Destruction  and  anarchy,  remedies  for 
no  evil,  222 

Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  434 

Duncan,  John,  16 

Diamonds,  composition  of,  357 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  219,  413 

"  Double  standard"  in  currency,  282 
seq. 

Duomo,  the,  371 


Earth,  the,  gravitation  of,  355,  356 
East  India  Company,  432 


Edgerton,   Henry,    3  ;    extract    from 

speech     of,     nominating     Newton 

Booth  for  governor  of   California, 

140,  141 
Education,   opportunities  for    in   the 

United  States,  224 
Elections,  moral  significance  of,  208  ; 

military  control  of,  244 
"  Elevator  Case,"  the  decision  in,  239 
Emancipation  of  Slaves,  250,  257 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  the,  6 
Emerson,  Ralph  W.,  his  estimate  of 

Swedenborg,  3S6,  387 
England,  free  trade  held  out  to,  by 

the  Confederacy,  as  an  inducement 

to  recognition,  266 
England  under  the  Georges,  423  seq. 
English  consols,  value  of,  295 
English  language,  the,  377 
Ericsson,  John,  347 
European     politics,     comparison     of 

theory  of,  with  American  politics, 

26 
Ewing,  Mr.,  217 


"Far  West,"  frontier  life  in  the,  105, 

106 
Felton,  John  B.,  175  ;  open  letter  to, 

175-83 

Financial  responsibility  of  the  United 
States  government,  228 

Fisk,  James,  185 

Folks,  Martin,  397 

Fourth  of  July,  the,  Newton  Booth's 
opinion  of  the  value  of  our  national 
holiday,  5  ;  oration  at  Stockton 
(Cal.),  in  i860,  23-36  ;  oration  at 
Michigan  Bluff,  in  1861,  40"53 ; 
oration  at  Nevada  City  (Cal.),  in 
1872,  89-95  ;  oration  at  Sacramento, 
in  1877, 116-21 

Fox,  Charles  James,  337,  338  ;  lecture 
on,  412-42  ;  parentage,  417  ;  anec- 


INDEX. 


515 


dotes  of  boyhood  of,  418  ;  early 
vanities  of,  419 ;  propensity  for 
gambling,  419-20  ;  enters  Parlia- 
ment, 425 ;  dismissed  from  office, 
427  ;  friendship  for  Burke,  427  ; 
becomes  the  leader  of  the  Whigs, 
433  ;  death,  440 

Fox,  Henry,  (Lord  Holland),  416,  417 

France,  free  trade  held  out  to,  by  the 
Confederacy,  as  an  inducement  to 
recognition,  266 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  407 

Free  Trade,  held  out  by  the  Confed- 
eracy, to  England  and  France  as  an 
inducement  to  recognition,  266 

Free  trade  and  protection,  266  seq. 

French  Revolution,  The,  (Thomas 
Carlyle),  parable  from,  208,  209 

French  Revolution,  the,  436,  437 

French  troops  in  Mexico,  273 

Frontier  life  in  the  "Far  West,"  105 
106 

Funded  debt  of  the  United  States  in 
1873,  103  ;  of  the  various  States  in 
1873,  103 

Funded  debt  of  the  United  States 
should  be  paid  in  gold,  292 


Gallatin,  Albert,  302 

Gates,  General,  246 

Genius  and  talent,  the  dividing  line 
between,  391 

George  the  First,  423,  424 

George  the  Second,  424 

George  the  Third,  412-4,  434,  435, 
441,  442 

Gladstone,  413 

Glover,  Mrs.  OctavineC.,  marriage  of, 
to  Newton  Booth,  xiv 

Gold,  circulation  of,  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  275  ;  the  most  accurate  rep- 
resentative of  value,  312 

Gold  dollar,  weight  of,  281 


Goodman,  Joseph  T.,  tribute  of,  to 
Newton  Booth,  128,  129 

Gould,  Jay,  185 

Government  aid  in  construction  of 
railroads,   160 

Government  bonds,  interest  on,  225 ,  226 

Grant,  General  U.  S.,  153,  257 

Great  Britain,  attitude  of,  toward  the 
Confederacy,  272,  273 

Greeley,    Horace,   147,   254,   507-510 

!  Greenbacks,  unlimited  issue  of,  225  ; 

as  legal  tender,    2 28  ;    decision  of 

Judge  Chase  concerning,  228  ;  and 

silver,  relative  values  of,  276  seq. 

Gunpowder,  356 

H 

Haight,  Governor,  231 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  407 
Hancock,  General,  245,  252,  268 
Hartridge,  Julian,  memorial   address 

on  life  and  character  of,   331,  333 
Hayes,  President,  policy  of,  213,  230 
Haymond,   Hon.  Creed,    126  (note), 

128  (note) 
Hawaiian  treaty  of  1875,  extract  from 

Senator  Booth's  speech  in  opposition 

to,  135,  136 
Heaven,  Swedenborg's  conception  of, 

396,  397 
Hendricks,  Governor,  227 
Hero,  of  Alexandria,  earliest  authen- 
tic account    of    the  application  of 

steam,  in  works  of,  345 
Hill,  Senator  (of  Georgia),  254 
Holiday  excursion  with  H.  C.  Watson, 

497-507 
Holland,  Lord,  416,  417 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  389 
Hostility  of  corporations  to  Senator 

Booth,  137,  138 
House  of  Representatives,  power  of 

the  Speaker  of,  265 
Huxley,  Professor,  399 


5i6 


INDEX. 


Ideal  republic,  the,  188 

Immigration,  Chinese,  241,  242  ; 
speech  upon,  delivered  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  318-26 

Incorporating,  mania  for,  195 

Independent  Order  of  Odd  Fellows, 
anniversary  address,  7-22  ;  organi- 
zation of,  in  Baltimore,  in  1819,  16 

Industries,  revolution  in,  caused  by  the 
invention  of  the  steam  engine,  220 

Inflation  of  the  currency,  285  seq. 

Injustice  of  import  duties  for  the 
benefit  of  private  enterprises,  189 
seq. 

"  Innocuous  desuetude,"  271 

Interest  on  government  bonds,  225,  226 

Irrigation,  the  importance  of,  for  the 
welfare  of  California,  100,  101 


Jackson,  General,  message  vetoing  the 

United  States  Bank  bill,  in   1832, 

188,  407 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  223,  407 
Jessup,  Jonathan  A.,  (see  Lockwood, 

Rufus  A.) 
Johnston,  General  A.  S.,  3 
Johnson,  Reverdy,  407 
Journals,    Mr.    Booth's   contributions 

to,  443-5IO 
y.  W.  Chapman,  The  (rebel  schooner), 

capture  of,  2 

K 

King,  Thomas  Starr,  3,  260 
"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,"  the 
plans  of,  2 


Labor  and  capital,  218  seq. 
Laboring  classes,  prosperity  dependent 
upon  the  condition  of,  234 


Labor-saving  machinery,  349 

Lamb,  Charles,  233 

Lands,    public,    amount  of,   given  to 

the  railroads,  170 
Language,  the  English,  377 
Lee,  Fitzhugh,  212 
Legal  tender  of  silver  coin,  speech 

upon,  delivered  in  the  United  States 

Senate,  275-305 
Legislative  bills,    number    of,    intro- 
duced    during     Governor    Booth's 

term  of  office,  132  (note) 
Lincoln,    Abraham,  tribute   to,    113, 

114,  259;  death  of,  250,  251  ;  call 

for  troops  by,  255 
Local  officers,  importance  of  care  in 

the  election  of,  101,  102 
Lockwood,  Rufus  A.,  sketch  of,  475- 

497 
Louisville  Courier- yournal,  The,  265 
Louvre,  Palace  of  the,  369 
Luttrell,  Mr.,  217 


M 


Mcintosh,  Sir  James,  421 
Magazines,  Mr.  Booth's  contributions 

to,  443-5IO 
Mania  for  incorporating,  195 
Manning,  Daniel,  suggests  the  stop- 
ping of  the  coinage  of  silver,  and 
the  reduction  of  the  tariff,  266 
Mason  and  Slidell,  seizure  of,  272 
Matter,  the  mystery  of,  352  seq. 
Mechanics'  Institute  of  San  Francisco, 
address  at  the  opening  of  the  Sixth 
Industrial  Exhibition  of,  77-86 
Metaphysics,  a  Scotchman's  definition 

of,  351 
Mexico,  French  troops  in,  273 
Michigan  Bluff  (Cal.),  address  at,  6  ; 
Fourth-of-July  oration   at,  in  1861 
(full  text  of),  40-53 
Milan,  cathedral  at,  370 
Military  control  of  elections,  244 


INDEX. 


517 


Milton,  John,  363 

Mind,  the  mystery  of,  352  seq.  ;  opera- 
tions of  the,  389  seq. 
Model      constitution      proposed     for 

France  during  the  Revolution,  219 
Money,  amount  of,  given  by  the  State 

of  California  to  railroad  companies, 

170 
Moon,  the  gravitation  of,  355 
Morals  and  politics,  lecture  on,  401- 

412 
Mormons,  the,  381,  382 
Morrison,  Colonel,  265 
Morse,  Professor,  406 
Morton,  Senator  Oliver  P.,  memorial 

address  on  life  and   character  of, 

326-30 


N 


Napoleon,  Louis,  273,  369 

Nation,  the  true  wealth  of  the,  407 

National  banks,  system  of  circulation 
of  notes  of,  228 

National  debt  of  the  United  States, 
287 

National  notes,  redemption  of,  278 
seq. 

Natural  features  of  California,  phe- 
nomenal character  of,  233 

Natural  issues,  speech  upon,  de- 
livered  at    San  Francisco,   245-59 

Nevada  City  (Cal.),  Fourth-of-July 
oration  at,  89-95 

New  Almaden  mine,  189 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  303 

New  York  Central  Railroad  Company, 
the,  161 

New  York  City,  dependence  of  the 
Democratic  party  upon,  for  any 
national  success,   266 

Nineteenth  century,  wonderful  indus- 
trial progress  made  during,  77  seq. 

North,  Lord,  429,  430 


O 

Odd  Fellows,  anniversary  address,  7- 
22  ;  organization  of,  in  Baltimore, 
in  1819,  16 

Officers,  local,  importance  of  care  in 
the  election  of,  101,  102 

Oration  at  commencement  of  the  Col- 
lege of  California,  66-77 

"Our  Railroads — a  Problem,"  speech 
delivered  in  San  Francisco,  183-9 

Over-production,  294,  295 

Oxford,  Lord,  414-6,  424,  439 


Pacific  coast,  circulation  of  gold  on, 
275 

Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company,  206 

Pacific  Railroad  Acts,  speech  on,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  136 

Pacific  railroads,  extracts  from  speech 
on,  in  the  United  State  Senate,  137 

Page,  Mr.,  218 

Palace  of  the  Louvre,  369 

Palmer,  Governor,  194 

Paper  money,  282 

Papyrus,  377 

Patriotic  action  of  Southern  leaders 
in  Congress,  217 

Pendleton,  Mr.,  217,  225 

Pennsylvania  Central  Railroad  Com- 
pany, the,  161 

People's  Independent  Party,  speech  in 
support  of,  delivered  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, 199-213 

"  Perfectionists"  (religious  sect),  263 

Perkins,  George  C,  230  seq. 

Phelps,  Mr.  ,  209 

Phenomenal  natural  features  of  Cali- 
fornia, 233 

Physical  courage,  247 

Pitt,  William  (Lord  Chatham),  414, 
416,  424,  439 

Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  431  seq. 

Pitts,  Hannah,  xiii. 


5i8 


INDEX. 


Politics,  comparison  of  American  and 
European  theories  of,  26  ;  indiffer- 
ence of  the  public  in  regard  to,  402  ; 
patriotism  in,  403  seq. 
Politics  and  Morals,  lecture  on,  401- 

412 
Population  of  California  in  1861,  1 
Power  of  railroads  and  other  large 

corporations,  161  seq. 
Present  hour,  the,  lecture  on,  369-85 
Presidential     campaign    speech,     de- 
livered in  San  Francisco,  in  1872, 

144-54 

Printing,  377 

Private  property,  the  sacredness  of, 
187 

Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  257, 
258 

Property,  private,  sacredness  of,  187 

Prosperity  dependent  upon  the  con- 
dition of  the  laboring  classes,  234 

Protection  and  free  trade,  266  seq. 

Public  debt,  reduction  of,  226 

Public  lands,  amount  of,  given  to  rail- 
road companies,  170 

Public  schools,  comparison  of  cost  of 
maintenance  of,  in  California  and 
Connecticut,  210 

Public  services  of  Newton  Booth,  his 
personal  reference  to,  140 

Puritans,  the,  375 


Quicksilver,  injustice  of  import  duty 
upon,  189 


Railroad  problem  in  American  poli- 
tics, the,  address  upon,  delivered  in 
San  Francisco,  154-74 

Railroads  in  the  United  States,  funded 
debt  of,  in  1873,  103 

Railroads,  changes  in  methods  and 
principles  of  transportation   caused 


by,  159  seq.  ;  government  help  in 
construction  of,  160;  the  New  York 
Central  Railroad  Company,  161 ; 
the  Pennsylvania  Central,  161  ; 
power  of,  167  ;  money  given  to,  by 
the  State  of  California,  170 ;  amount 
of  public  lands  given  to,  170  ;  rapid 
growth  of,  184  ;  arguments  against 
State  aid  of,  186  seq.  ;  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  in  regard  to  the  rates  charged 
by,  239 

Randall,  S.  J.,  265,  266 

Raphael,  363 

Rebel  generals  in  Congress,  212 

Rebellion,  the,  credit  due  to  the  Re- 
publican party  for  the  suppression 
of,  247  ;  the  war  of,  253-8 

Red  Bluff  Lodge,  No.  76,  I.  O.  O.  F., 
of  California,  anniversary  address 
before,  7-22 

Reduction  of  the  public  debt,  226 

Republic,  the  ideal,  188 

Republican  party,  credit  due  to,  for 
the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion, 
247 

Republican,  The,  letter  to,  on  currency, 
305-7  ;  further  letter  upon  the  same 
subject,  308-18 

Revenue  system  of  the  United  States, 
speech  upon,  189-99  ;  artificial  and 
complicated  character  of,  193 

Rhodes,  A.  L.,  232 


Sacramento,  address  at,  before  the 
national  encampment  of  the  soldiers 
of  the  Grand  Army,  7  ;  speech  upon 
the  "  Debit  and  Credit  of  the  War  " 
delivered  at  (full  text  of),  53-66  ; 
Decoration-Day  oration  delivered 
at,  107-16  ;  Fourth-of-July  oration 
at,  1 1 6-2 1  ;  Newton  Booth's  speech 
at  the  ceremony  of  breaking  ground 


INDEX. 


519 


for  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad, 
123  ;  speech  upon  the  currency  ques- 
tion delivered  at,  213-230 ;  State 
campaign  speech  delivered  at,  260- 

74 

Sacramento  Union>  The,  its  work  in 
behalf  of  the  Union,  3  ;  fight  of, 
against  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad 
Company,  1 30 ;  failure  of,  130 ; 
Newton  Booth's  tribute  to,  131 

Sacredness  of  private  property,  187 

San  Francisco,  Sixth  Industrial  Ex- 
hibition of  the  Mechanics'  Institute 
at,  address  at  the  opening  of,  77- 
86  ;  Presidential  campaign  speech 
delivered  in  1872,  in  opposition  to 
the  election  of  Horace  Greeley,  144- 
54;  address  upon  "The  Railroad 
Problem  in  American  Politics," 
delivered  at,  154-74;  campaign 
speech  in  support  of  the  candidacy 
of  George  C.  Perkins,  delivered  at, 
230-45  ;  speech  upon  national  issues, 
delivered  at,  245-59 

San  Francisco  Bulletin,  The,  its  work 
in  behalf  of  the  Union,  3 

San  Francisco  Call,  The,  its  work  in 
behalf  of  the  Union,  3 

San  Jose,  address  before  the  California 
"State  Grange,"  delivered  at,  96- 
107 

Sargent,  Senator,  218 

Schools,  public,  comparison  of  cost  of 
maintenance  of,  in  California  and 
Connecticut,  210 

Science,  slow  growth  of,  339 

Scott,  General,  152 

Scott,  Thomas  A.,  185 

Selwyn,  George,  421 

Shakespeare,  William,  362,  363 

Shelley,  Percy  B.,  368 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  440,  441 

Shields,  General  James,  3 

Silver  and  greenbacks,  276  seq. 

Silver  coin   as  legal    tender,    speech 


upon,    delivered     in     the    United 
States  Senate,    275-305 

Silver  coinage  of  the  United  States 
mints  from  1821  to  1873,  289 

Silver  dollar,  weight  of,  281 

Silver  question,  the,  Senator  Booth's 
attitude  towards,  138,  139 

Sixth  Industrial  Exhibition  of  the 
Mechanics'  Institute  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, address  at  the  opening  of, 
77-86 

Slaves,  emancipation  of,  250 

Sloane,  Sir  Hans,  397 

Smith,  Adam,  309 
'  Socialism,  270 

Socrates,  361 

Somerset,  Edward,  Marquis  of  Wor- 
cester, 346 

Sonoquini,  Carlo,  41 1 

Sound,  movement  of,  354 

Southern  leaders,  patriotic  action  of, 
in  Congress,  217 

Southern  States,  dependence  of  the 
Democratic  party  upon,  for  any 
national  success,  266 

Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, power  of,  265 

Special  grants  to  corporations,  238 

Spiritual,  the,  lecture  on,  35I-369 

Spiritual  power,  manifestation  of,  366 

Springfield  Republican,  the,   198 

Standing  army,  no  need  of  in  the 
United  States,  222 

Stanley,  Edward,  3 

"State  Grange"  of  California,  ad- 
dress before  at  San  Jose,  96-107 

Steam,  first  authentic  account  of  ap- 
plication of  as  a  mechanical  power, 
345  ;  lectures  on,  338-51 

Steam  engine,  powerful  revolution  in 
industries  caused  by  the  invention 
of,  220,  347  seq. 

Stockton  (Cal.)  oration  at,  5  ;  Fourth- 
of-July  oration  at,  in  i860  (full  text 
of),  23-36  ;  speech  upon  the  United 


520 


INDEX. 


States  revenue  system  delivered  at, 
189 

Stockton  and  Visalia  Railroad,  196 

Subsidies,  arguments  against  payment 
of  in  aid  of  railroads,  186  seq,  231, 
232 

Sumner,  Charles,  211 

Sumner,  General,  3 

Sun,  the,  gravitation  of,  355 

Superstition,  hold  of  upon  the  popu- 
lar mind,  381 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
decision  of  in  regard  to  rates 
charged  by  railroads,  238 

Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  lecture  on, 
385-400;  birth  and  parentage,  385, 
386 ;  Emerson's  estimate  of,  386, 
387  ;  cause  of  his  mania,  387  ;  his 
"divine  illuminations,"  387,  388; 
his  clairvoyant  powers,  388  ;  his 
own  theory  and  explanation  of  his 
doctrine,  393  seq.  ;  his  conception  of 
heaven  and  hell,  396,  397  ;  extract 
from  the  Arcana,  397,  398  ;  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  his  philoso- 
phy, 398 

Swedenborgianism,  393  seq. 

Swift,  Dean,  303,  401 

Swift,  Mr.,  candidate  for  governor  of 
California,  1886,  261,  268,  269 


Talent  and  genius,  the  dividing  line 
between,  391 

Taxation,  the  burden  of,  294 

Taxes  should  be  levied  only  for  the 
necessary  purposes  of  government, 
187 

Telegraph,  the,  379 

"  The  Present  Hour,"  lecture  on, 
369-85 

Thought,  the  mystery  of,  360  ;  im- 
mortality of,  365 

Thurlow,  Lord,  435 


Tories,  comparison  of  the  Confederacy 
with,  246 

Tracy,  F.  P.,  3 

Trade-dollar,  275 

Transportation,  changes  in  methods 
and  principles  of,  caused  by  rail- 
roads, 159  seq. 

Treaty  with  Hawaii  (1875),  extract 
from  Senator  Booth's  speech  in 
opposition  to,  135 

Trent  affair,  the,  272 

True  wealth  of  the  nation,  the,  407 

Twiggs,  General,  254 


U 


Union  Club  of  Sacramento,  Cal.,  re- 
marks before,  36-40 

United  States,  the,  claims  to  honor 
and  regard  of,  90  seq.  ;  funded  debt 
of,  in  1873,  103  ;  funded  debt  of 
railroads  in  1873,  103  ;  opportunities 
for  education  in,  224  ;  circulating 
medium  of,  275  ;  debt  of,  287 

United  States  Bank  bill  in  1832,  veto 
of  by  General  Jackson,  188 

United  States  Bank,  capital  stock  of, 
in  1832,  188 

United  States  government,  amount  of 
annual  payment  by,  on  the  bonds 
of  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad 
Company,  170  ;  not  self-supporting, 
but  dependent  upon  taxation,  192, 
193  ;  financial  responsibility  of,  228 

United  States  revenue  system,  speech 
upon,  189-99  !  artificial  and  com- 
plicated character  of,  193 

United  States  Senate,  Newton 
Booth's  services  in,  134  seq. 


Vanderbilt,  Cornelius,  185,  204 
Virginia  (Nev.)   Enterprise,    the,    its 
work  in  behalf  of  the  Union,  3 


INDEX. 


521 


W 

Walpole,  Horace,  424 

War,  Debit  and  Credit  of  the,  speech 
upon,  delivered  at  Sacramento,  53- 
66 

War  as  a  factor  in  the  centralization 
of  power,  156 

War  of  1 8 12,  the,  273 

War  of  the  Rebellion,  253-58  ;  work 
of  the  Republican  party  in  connec- 
tion with,  247 

Washington,  George,  407 

Water,  356 

Watson,  H.  C,  497-507 

Watt,  James,  346 

Wealth,  the  true  wealth  of  a  nation,  407 

Wealth  of  corporations  a  source  of 
danger  to  the  country,  157 


WTebster,  Daniel,  361 

Weight  of  gold  and  silver  dollars,  281 

Welsh,  John,  16 

Wesley,  John,  263 

Western  Pacific  Railroad,  division  of 
the  Central  Pacific,  195  ;  enormous 
grants  of  land  to,  196 

Wigginton,  Mr.,  217 

Wildey,  Thomas,  16 

Wilkes,  Commodore,  272 

Wilkes,  Mr.,  425,  426 

Williams,  W'illiam,  Governor  Booth's 
reasons  for  commuting  death  sen- 
tence of,  132 

Wood,  Fernando,  227 

Wool,  duty  on,  264 

Worcester,  Edward  Somerset,  Marquis 
of,  346 


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